From the armistice agreement to the agreement to extend it.. Houthi is the "devil" of the details
English - Sunday 09 April 2023 الساعة 01:14 pm
Aden, NewsYemen, Ammar Ali Ahmed:
With the acceleration of leaks and conversations about the imminent announcement of the UN armistice agreement in Yemen, the most important question arises about the possibility of implementing this agreement by the parties to the agreement, specifically the Houthi group, given the failure that met the implementation of the armistice agreement announced about a year ago.
The armistice agreement, which was announced on the second of April last year, included only 4 items: stopping offensive military operations, entering oil derivatives ships to the ports of Hodeidah, operating commercial flights to and from Sanaa airport, opening roads in Taiz and other governorates in Yemen.
Within hours to a few days, the three terms of the agreement were implemented by the coalition and the legitimacy, leaving the implementation of the last item related to opening roads in Taiz and the rest of the governorates, but this did not happen despite the multiple meetings that took place between representatives of the government and the Houthi group under the supervision of the envoy in Jordan.
The interpretation of the Houthi group and its view of the clause of opening the roads, transformed these meetings from just routine meetings to arrange the procedures and steps for opening the roads into arduous and complex negotiations to determine the priority of these roads and open them in stages of time, and it came to the point that the Jordan meetings drowned in talking about the roads of Taiz and ignoring the main roads cut between the Yemeni governorates .
The Houthi group thwarted these meetings, after rejecting the proposal of the UN envoy, which included opening a main road towards Taiz, as the group insisted on opening long and rugged secondary roads between the city of Taiz and the areas under its control, strongly rejecting any talk about opening the main roads of Taiz, which was rejected by the government delegation.
The failure to implement the clause on opening the roads represented the real beginning of the faltering of the armistice agreement, and its failure to achieve the main objective of its declaration, which is to reach a "permanent ceasefire, urgent economic and humanitarian measures, and the resumption of the political process between the Yemeni parties" after two months of the armistice's entry into force, according to what was reported. In the text of its announcement by the UN envoy, it is the same as what the armistice extension agreement is trying to address after a full year has passed on it.
This reveals the magnitude of the challenge that will face the armistice extension agreement if it is announced, given the complexity of its provisions compared to the terms of the initial armistice agreement. Especially with regard to the economic aspects, such as the unification of the currency, the management of the central bank, and the file of paying salaries from the oil export revenues, which were halted as a result of the Houthi attacks on the export ports in the liberated governorates.
Complex files due to the extent of the tampering practiced by the Houthi group during the past years in the economic and financial aspects, as well as in the administrative aspect of state institutions in the areas under its control, not the last of which is its approval of the law to prevent usurious transactions, which threatens an economic catastrophe, according to local and international warnings.
In addition to the most important dilemma represented in the explanations that the Houthi group will provide later with the start of the implementation phase of the terms of the new agreement, as happened with the clause of opening roads, especially the thorny file of salary payments, which is expected to represent the greatest threat to the new agreement. Because of the group's behavior in dealing with the agreements, and its transformation into something like the "devil" who lurks in the details.
