The head of Yemen’s Southern Transitional Council, an umbrella group of heavily armed and well-financed militias, said Friday that he will prioritise the creation of a separate country in negotiations with their rivals, the Houthi rebels.

Saudi officials have reportedly held direct talks with a delegation from Yemen’s Ansarullah resistance movement over a permanent ceasefire to end the war, leaving its allied parties in the cold.

Citing informed sources, the Lebanese al-Akhbar daily reported that Omani-mediated negotiations have been taking place between Saudi Arabia and the Sana’a government in Riyadh.

For the United States to commit itself in advance to take the side of some other country that becomes involved in an international conflict is an extraordinary step that is justified only under extraordinary circumstances.

There needs to be a credible external threat to the country being protected. And there must be enough commonality of interests and values between the United States and the protected state that the difference between that state falling or not falling to external aggression is highly significant for U.S. interests.

An American envoy and a Bahraini academic posed for the camera at a Washington hotel in October 2020, grinning ear to ear. They held a copy of an agreement between the U.S. State Department and the King Hamad Global Center for Peaceful Coexistence to combat antisemitism in Bahrain. Ellie Cohanim, then the U.S.