BRUSSELS: Yemen's foreign minister warned last week that Ansar Allah fighters could thwart a renewed diplomatic push for peace as they scramble to seize a key city before discussing any ceasefire. In an interview with AFP, Ahmed bin Mubarak said mediators had made progress in efforts to broker a ceasefire, but urged Europe to maintain pressure on the fighters.
And he suggested that the Ansar Allah fighters had backed recent bloody attacks, alleging they want to use Yemen as a bargaining chip to maintain leverage in nuclear talks with world powers in Vienna.
"There is a lot of hope in Yemen, and also challenges," said the 52-year-old official, who has been foreign minister in President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi's embattled government since December 2020.
Yemen has been left devastated by a civil war since 2014, and millions of civilians are on the brink of famine.
Hadi's government is backed by a military coalition, which announced it had halted attacks on Ansar Allah targets to pave the way to ceasefire talks.
The UN and US envoys to Yemen, Martin Griffiths and Tim Lenderking, along with Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif have met the mediators and some officials see a diplomatic opening.
But bin Mubarak, who is in Europe lobbying officials to take a strong line on Ansar Allah and hold them to account, alleged that the fighters had snubbed the diplomatic outreach.
"The mediators are playing a vital role... For that reason, I think they sent their delegation to Sanaa to discuss with Ansar Allah fighters political leadership," he said. "Yet, we didn't receive any feedback from them. The only feedback that we received was just two brutal attacks that took place, yesterday and the day before."
According to the government, in the latest attacks, Ansar Allah ballistic missiles and booby-trapped drones hit civilian targets including a gas station and a women's detention centre. Official sources say more than 20 people have been killed since Saturday, including a child, women and medical personnel.
For bin Mubarak, the attacks were a sign hardline Ansar Allah factions want to keep the conflict going until they seize the northern city of Marib, which would shift Yemen's balance of power decisively.
"I think there are those, the hardliners, who believe that they have the divine right to rule Yemen, those that still have some illusions about military victory," he said. "And they are pushing hard into Marib, so they don't want anything happening before, you know, capturing Marib," he said, referring to the last significant pocket of government territory in the north.
"If something happened in Marib, that will totally and tragically change the political scene and the humanitarian scene," he said.
"All what we have been through before Marib, it will be totally, different after Marib. Marib is hosting not less than two million refugees and IDPs."
The Ansar Allah have demanded that the coalition, which controls Yemen's airspace but has failed to stop the fighter ground advance, allow Sanaa airport to reopen.
But bin Mubarak said that had long been a pillar of the UN-backed ceasefire plan which must be accepted as a package -- and should not be a pre-condition of talks. The attacks, meanwhile, he said, showed the fighters' complete lack of respect for the internationally-backed envoys in Sanaa -- and he sees others hand behind them.
But bin Mubarak noted that the US has this week imposed sanctions on several Ansar Allah fighters, in part to pressure them to end their Marib offensive. Speaking after he met senior EU officials, bin Mubarak thanked Europe for its humanitarian support to 28 million hungry Yemenis but warned this would have to continue until Ansar Allah come to the table.
"And that was was my message to them: That it's the time to adopt a new approach, by the European Union," he said, calling for EU sanctions on the Ansar Allah. "It's time to bring peace back." - AFP
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