Description
An RSAA lecture with Dr Noel Brehony CMG.
Yemen has been consistently overlooked despite a decade of Houthi insurgency followed by two decades of brutal civil war which has left the country in a severe humanitarian crisis with millions of people internally displaced, tens of thousands in famine-like conditions and two thirds of the population in dire need of humanitarian support.
Fighting subsided from April 2022 following a UN mediated truce and the replacement of President Hadi as head of the internationally recognised government by a Presidential Liberation Council (PLC) bringing together leaders of the main anti-Houthi factions. Substantial progress was made in negotiations between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis which was to lead to a roadmap that would see negotiations over the future governing of Yemen between the PLC and the Houthis. Following a series of Houthi attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea, in response to the Israeli offensive in Gaza, the fate of Yemen has been pushed back onto the international agenda. Negotiations between the Houthis and the Saudis have been in abeyance since October 2023. What are the prospects for renewed negotiations and the road map? Can the PLC remain united with renewed calls from the Southern Transitional Council (STC) for an independent southern Yemeni state. What does the future hold for Yemen and how will that effect the wider Middle East?
Noel Brehony CMG is Honorary Vice President and former Chair of the British Yemeni Society. After completing a PhD on Libya and postdoctoral research on the West Bank, he joined the FCO working mostly on the Middle East with postings in Kuwait, Yemen, Jordan and Egypt. He then became Director of Middle East Affairs for Rolls-Royce. He was chair of the British-Yemeni Society between 2010-15 and 2018-19 and has been President of the British Society for Middle East Studies, Chair of the International Association for the Study of Arabia and Chair of the Council for British Research in the Levant. Brehony is a trustee of the Al Tajir Trust. He has edited and co-edited five books on Yemen and wrote Yemen Divided: The Story of a Failed State in South Arabia which was published in March 2011.
