Yemen Monitor/Sana’a/Exclusive:
The Houthi armed group announced on Tuesday its readiness to immediately sign a roadmap to initiate a political settlement in Yemen. This comes after statements by Houthi leaders indicating that the current phase is critical following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria and the decline of Iran’s axis.
The Houthi announcement was made during a meeting between Jamal Amer, the foreign minister in the internationally unrecognized Houthi government, and Mohammed al-Ghanam, director of the office of the UN envoy to Yemen, and his economic advisor Dirk Umtzigt in Sana’a.
Amer stated, “Sanaa’s position is clear and leaves no room for ambiguity regarding its immediate readiness to sign the roadmap, as it is the gateway to initiating a political settlement process in Yemen.”
Amer pointed out that talk of “freezing the roadmap at the present time is a response to US pressure on Sana’a to stop supporting Gaza.” He added that this is “rejected outright as there is no connection between the peace file and signing the roadmap and the escalation file in the Red Sea, and any pressure in this direction will have counterproductive results.”
Amer and Umtzigt discussed addressing the economic file and the division in the central bank, and setting “agreed-upon determinants and criteria for the work of the joint economic committee, and identifying points of disagreement and starting from points of convergence.”
Last week, the Houthi group announced its readiness to sign an economic agreement with its opponents, the internationally recognized government.
On Sunday, Abdul Karim al-Houthi, the uncle of the Houthi leader and the group’s interior minister, said that “the current phase that Yemen is going through is a dangerous phase.” This comes amid growing concerns within the movement about a similar fate to that of Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria.
The Houthis have been accused of delaying the signing of the agreement and imposing new conditions for its implementation prior to the roadmap. The roadmap is the product of consultations between the Houthis and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and officials in the government say they were not consulted about it. Experts say that the agreement rewards the Houthis and is likely to provide incentives for the armed group to find a temporary settlement with its rivals in southern Yemen. The roadmap would also provide funds to help alleviate the suffering of the Yemeni people, who rely heavily on dwindling supplies of food aid from abroad.
