White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan spoke by phone with Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday amid signs that the Saudis and Iran-allied Houthis in Yemen are making “remarkable progress” toward finding a permanent end to their nine-year conflict, according to the Biden administration.
The call came after Saudi diplomat Mohammed bin Saeed al-Jaber met with Houthi officials in Yemen’s capital Sanaa on Sunday for talks that were aimed at accelerating negotiations on ending the war. The White House said in a statement that Sullivan “welcomed Saudi Arabia’s extraordinary efforts” to pursue a more comprehensive roadmap for ending the war and offered full US support for those efforts.
Iran-allied Houthis seized Sanaa in 2014 and forced the internationally recognized government into exile in Saudi Arabia. A Saudi-led coalition armed with US weaponry and intelligence entered the war on the side of Yemen’s exiled government in 2015. Years of inconclusive fighting created a humanitarian disaster and pushed the Arab world’s poorest nation to the brink of famine.
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