The protests that have spread to every corner of Jordan since May 30 are the largest since 2011. Tens of thousands have taken to the street in opposition to proposed changes to the tax code and increased prices for fuel and electricity, beginning with a call from professional associations to their members but quickly spreading to small and large urban centers across the kingdom.
US Secretary of State John Kerry met two weeks ago with Gulf Cooperation Council representatives, officials from the United Kingdom, and the UN special envoy in Jeddah to discuss the war in Yemen and the desperate need to advance the peace talks. He pledged $189 million in humanitarian aid and called for a new peace initiative. The talks are currently in recess, so increased attention from the White House might nudge the parties back to the table.
As the Yemen peace talks went on hiatus on August 6, the Houthi-Saleh alliance moved to convene a newly formed governing council in the capital Sanaa. As they did so, forces loyal to internationally recognized President Abd Rabbou Mansour al-Hadi tried again to take Sanaa militarily. The Houthi and Saleh camps experienced tense moments during the last round of talks, with Ali Abdallah Saleh complaining that the Houthis were acting unilaterally and not collaborating with (General People’s Congress) GPC leaders. But their cooperation in announcing and convening a new assembly suggests that those differences have been put aside.
Representatives of the government and Houthi delegations to the peace talks in Kuwait announced that they were suspending the talks until the end of Ramadan in mid-July. The process had effectively stalled even as UN special Envoy for Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed expressed cautious optimism last week about the Yemeni peace talks underway in Kuwait since April.
Two developments in Yemen over the past week illustrate both promise and concern for Yemen’s peace talks. Escalated fighting in the Marib and Shabwa provinces took more than a hundred lives, but the latest prisoner swap of pro-Hadi and Houthi fighters indicates that the peace process has not collapsed. With increased US pressure on Saudi Arabia, Yemen’s President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi may need to consider an option that he previously shunned, namely, an outcome that entails less than the full Houthi surrender demanded by UN SC resolution 2216.
UN Special Envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed has worked tirelessly to keep Yemeni peace talks alive in Kuwait, expressing cautious optimism. He described the truce on the ground as holding at around 80 to 90 percent, even as the delegations of the Houthi-GPC alliance and the government of Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi express frustrations at the other and even periodically walk away from the table.