US: Biden Ends Support For Saudi’s Yemen War In Foreign Policy Shift

President Joe Biden announced an end to United States support for Saudi led military offensive operations in Yemen, indicating that new administration is planning a more active US role in efforts to end the country’s civil war. This war has to end. And also to underscore our commitment, we’re ending all American support for offensive operations in the war in the Yemen, including relevant arm sales, the US president said in a speech at

the State Department. At the same time, he said on Thursday, Saudi Arabia faces missile attacks, UAV (drone) strikes and other threats from Iranian-supplied forces in multiple countries. We’re going to continue to support and help Saudi Arabia defend its sovereignty and its territorial integrity and its people. Saudi Arabia welcomed Biden’s remarks, particularly his commitment to the country’s defence and addressing threats against

it. Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan al-Saud welcomed cooperating with the President Biden administration to solve issues in the region, without commenting on its decision to end support for Saudi Arabia’s war efforts in Yemen. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia also welcomes the United States’ commitment, expressed in the President Joe Biden’s speech today, to cooperate with the Kingdom in defending its security

and territory, the foreign minister said on Twitter. Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman reiterated the same sentiment in a series of tweets late on Thursday. As we have for over seven decades, we look forward to working with our friends in the US on addressing these challenges, he said. The ending of US support for the offensive will not affect any US operations against the Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, group, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said.

Yemen’s civil war has claimed tens of thousands of lives, including large numbers of civilians, and created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis

President Biden also announced the choice of Timothy Lenderking as special envoy to Yemen, a move also welcomed by Saudi Arabia’s deputy foreign minister. Lenderking has extensive experience dealing with Yemen and the Gulf. He has been the deputy assistant secretary of state for Gulf affairs and served in the US embassy in Riyadh. The Yemen reversal is one of a series of changes Biden laid out on Thursday that he

said would be part of a course correction for US foreign policy. It comes after former President Donald Trump - and some Republican and Democratic administrations before his - often aided authoritarian leaders abroad in the name of stability. The announcement on Yemen fulfills a campaign pledge. But it also shows Joe Biden putting the spotlight on a major humanitarian crisis that the United States has helped aggravate. The reversing

of policy also comes as a rebuke to the Saudi Arabia, a global oil giant and US strategic partner. Sullivan on Thursday reiterated Biden’s pledge, made during the 2020 presidential campaign, that he would curtail US support for Saudi Arabia’s military campaign in Yemen, including ending arms agreements. It extends to the types of offensive operations that have perpetuated a civil war in Yemen that has led to a humanitarian crisis,

Sullivan said. The types of examples of that include two arms sales of precision-guided munitions that the president has halted that were moving forward at the end of the last administration. Sullivan added that the US has spoken with senior officials in Saudi Arabia and its ally the United Arab Emirates as part of a policy of no surprises with these types of actions so they understand that this is happening and they understand

our reasoning and rationale for it. Many Yemen activists celebrated the Biden administration’s decision as a potential end to the war, but some analysts warned that the foreign policy shift’s implementation on the ground remains to be seen. Ending United States support will not automatically mean an end to the war, at all. There is a really fine balance to be struck here, in finding a way to end the war that armed, political factions, the local

groups and the civil society can buy into. Not easy at all, Peter Salisbury, senior Yemen analyst at Crisis Group, said on Twitter. The Yemen’s civil war pits the internationally recognised government against the Iranian-aligned Houthi movement. The conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives, including large numbers of civilians, and created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. A Saudi led coalition intervened in

March 2015 on the side of the government and enjoyed the backing of the Trump administration, with the war increasingly seen as a proxy conflict between the US and Iran. But the mounting civilian death toll and the growing humanitarian calamity - the United Nations estimates that 80 percent of Yemen’s 24 million people are in need - fuelled bipartisan demands for an end to US support for Riyadh. Human Rights Watch said in its World Report 2021 published in January that the parties to Yemen’s armed conflict continued to violate the laws

of war in 2020, including committing new war crimes. HRW reported that the coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, as well as Houthi forces, launched mortars, rockets, and missiles into heavily populated areas. The coalition also carried out more airstrikes that violated the laws of war and attacking civilians and the civilian structures and using munitions purchased from the United States, France, Canada and other countries, HRW said. In 2020, the United Nations Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen called for the UN Security Council to refer the situation in Yemen to the International Criminal Court, and for the creation of an international accountability mechanism.

Joe Biden is naming a special envoy to Yemen as the State Department reviews a Trump administration designation last month of the Iran-aligned Houthi group as a foreign ‘terrorist’ organisation

The United Nations has been struggling to broker peace talks between the government and the Houthis an effort that Lenderking likely would be tasked with boosting. The United States President Joe Biden’s decision to name a special envoy comes as State Department reviews a Trump administration designation last month of the Iran aligned the Houthi group also as a foreign

terrorist organisation. The US last week approved all transactions involving Yemen’s Houthi movement for the next month as it carries out the review. But the UN is still hearing concerns that companies are planning to cancel or suspend business with Yemen despite the move. United Nations and aid groups have called the designation to be reversed, warning it would push the Yemen into a large scale famine.