Yemen’s peace depends on getting the sequence right

From the report

The failure of the 2016 Kuwait negotiations offers a critical lesson: a lasting settlement requires enforceable commitments, verifiable steps and accountability before political concessions are exchanged.

Yemen’s decade-long conflict has repeatedly demonstrated that bringing warring parties to the negotiating table is far easier than persuading them to make the compromises necessary for peace. The most important lesson emerged in 2016, when Kuwait hosted an ambitious United Nations-backed effort to end the war. Despite months of negotiations and personal intervention by Kuwait’s late emir, the talks collapsed over a fundamental disagreement: should the Houthis first withdraw from captured cities and surrender heavy weapons, or should a new inclusive government be established before those security demands were implemented?

A decade later, Yemen faces a familiar dilemma, but the consequences of another failed diplomatic effort could be even more dangerous. With renewed military escalation, Houthi missile threats against Saudi airports and energy facilities, and warnings from UN envoy Hans Grundberg about a return to full-scale war, the international community must confront the central question that undermined previous negotiations: who should move first?