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U.S. Seeks Saudi Role in Yemen

21 January 2010 01:18 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Ayaz Abdulla â€“ APA. The Obama administration is urging a major role for Saudi Arabia in an emerging international effort to stabilize Yemen, said U.S. and European officials involved in the diplomacy, APA reports quoting Wall Street Journal.
In doing so, the White House risks relying on an ally whose interests in Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula don’t always align with Washington’s.
One difference has already arisen: While Riyadh continues a military campaign against insurgents based inside Yemen’s northern border with Saudi Arabia, the U.S. on Wednesday called for political dialogue in the conflict with the rebel group, the Houthis. The U.S. coordinates closely with Saudi Arabia in combating Iranian influence across the Middle East, but U.S. officials say they’ve received no intelligence to back Riyadh’s claims that Iran is arming and funding the Houthi.
Yemen’s government is also conducting military operations against the Houthis, in coordination with Saudi Arabia.
"We believe there is no solely military solution," said Jeffrey Feltman, the State Department’s assistant secretary for Near East affairs, in Senate testimony Wednesday. "We’d like to see a cease-fire."
Yemen is the poorest country in the Arab world and suffers from dwindling oil and water resources. Its government faces insurgencies in the north and south, and the al Qaeda faction based in the country is a threat within Yemen and abroad. The country has a rapidly growing population and an unemployment rate as high as 35%â€”economic factors that feed discontent and local support for insurgent groups.
The separatist conflicts are sapping the San’a government’s already limited resources. "This Houthi war is accelerating the economic collapse of Yemen," said Christopher Boucek, a Middle East analyst at Washington’s Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Officials from the U.S. and Saudi Arabia plan to attend an international conference on Yemen on January 27 in London. The meeting will also include representative from the United Nations, European Union and other key Arab states, such as the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
In the coming weeks, Washington is seeking to formalize and streamline international assistance to President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s government as a means to cut corruption and financial leakage in Yemen. But Saudi officials say they believe religious foundations and tribal institutions often provide the most effective channels for providing aid to Yemen’s 23 million people.
The U.S. and Saudi Arabia traditionally have pursued divergent strategies in providing economic assistance to developing nations like Yemen. U.S. and Saudi officials say they’ll need to better coordinate their strategies in the months ahead.
"Yemen has to be dealt with in its own way," said a Saudi official. "It’s very tribalâ€¦and people need to realize this is how it operates."
Ahead of the London meeting, Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, retired Gen. Jim Jones, visited Saudi Arabia last week and met King Abdullah, as well as Crown Prince Sultan, who oversees Yemen policy for the Saudi government, according to U.S. and Saudi officials. Mr. Jones also saw Saudi Arabia’s top counterterrorism official, Deputy Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who narrowly escaped an assassination attempt by a Yemen-based al Qaeda operative in August.
U.S. officials say they believe Prince Nayef was targeted by the same al Qaeda affiliate, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, that allegedly sought to bring down a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day.
Riyadh is by far Yemen’s largest aid donor and has significant influence over President Saleh. Saudi Arabia is also seen as having extensive intelligence on Islamic militants operating inside Yemen. Al Qaeda’s Yemeni cell is headed by a number of Saudi nationals and shares strong tribal ties to Saudi Arabia.
"The Saudis had their own epiphany in 2003 [about al Qaeda]. They have done an extraordinary job of rolling that back," said Daniel Benjamin, the State Departments’ counterterrorism coordinator, in Senate testimony Wednesday.
U.S. military officials responsible for Yemen have requested a doubling of counterterrorism funding for this year, from $67 million to more than $200 million, including funding for new Yemeni arms purchases. U.S. and European officials hope Saudi Arabia and the other Arab states will also play a bigger role in strengthening Yemen’s security services.
U.S. and European officials said the international community in the past has failed to push President Saleh hard enough to pursue economic and political reforms in exchange for financial assistance. At the London conference, they’re hoping the international community can agree to a more coordinated approach on aid and economic reform.
Arab Governments are specifically being asked to consider ways to allow in more Yemeni laborers and to play a bigger role in vocational training for Yemenis.
"The GCC could certainly do more to open their markets to Yemeni labor," said a European official, referring to the Gulf Cooperation Council, which is made up of six leading Persian Gulf states. The Gulf states expelled many Yemeni laborers in 1991 after President Saleh sided with Sadaam Hussein in the first Gulf War.