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Chances for peace in Yemen slim: Author

Monday, 18 April 2016 4:51 AM [ Last Update: Monday, 18 April 2016 4:53 AM ]

This handout picture released by UN Photo shows a general view of the room at the opening of Yemen peace talks in Magglingen, Northen Switzerland, on December 15, 2015. (Photo by AFP)

Press TV has conducted an interview with Naseer al-Omari, an author and political commentator from New York, and Nabil Mikhail, a professor at George Washington University from Washington, to discuss the relentless Saudi war on Yemen and its dire consequences for the impoverished nation.

Omari says “the chances for peace in Yemen unfortunately are slim,” because “Saudi Arabia wants to hold a veto on the process and the product of these negotiations; so, there is no way the Yemenis can sit and have peace as long as you have the Saudis manipulating various factions to achieve their own goals.”

The commentator also says there is no sign of peace in Yemen because “the Saudis did not like the results that they were getting” from their aggression. “The goal was to defeat the Houthis and to destroy the Houthis. That has not happened.”

Pointing to the role of the US and Britain in the Yemeni war, he notes, “The Americans and the Brits are sitting in Saudi war rooms, they are channeling the war and they are helping them target Yemenis.”

“Despite all the reports that say, ‘Oh, we didn’t help them target civilians,’ the fact of the matter is this is the new colonialism,” Omari states. The US and Britain are making money from the war on Yemen without having their soldiers being killed in the conflict and in fact Western arms companies use “Arabs to kill Arabs,” he argues.

Mikhail, for his part, believes the two previous rounds of talks between warring sides “failed” because “there was no consensus and the opposition between the two contending factions was wide.”

He says there was no effort to bridge the gap between the two sides and the UN started a “weak” mission which could not push for a lasting ceasefire. “So, there could be more of an interest in reaching a midpoint, not achieving full consensus,” the academic concludes.

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