Saudi meeting opens door for Biden to re-engage on halting war in Yemen

President Joe Biden has wanted to push for an end to the war in Yemen since the start of his presidency, and his apparent reset in relations with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto Saudi ruler, could help do just that.

During his visit to Saudi Arabia on Friday, Biden announced support for a truce in the war that has been in place since April and was recently renewed by the warring parties.

Biden’s ongoing interest in Yemen underscores his administration’s eagerness to show that its relationship with Saudi Arabia has benefits far beyond oil, and Biden has supported the work of a high-level diplomatic envoy to push the Saudi-led coalition and Yemen’s Houthi rebels toward peace talks.

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“The last administration walked away from diplomacy when it came to ending the war in Yemen,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters aboard Air Force One. “This president reengaged on that, and now we have a 15-week truce, the longest peaceful period in that conflict in several years.”

The Yemen war began in 2014 when the country’s Houthi rebels seized the capital, Sanaa, forcing the government into exile. Months later, an Arab military coalition led by Saudi Arabia and including the United Arab Emirates began a bombing campaign aimed at driving the Houthis from the capital and restoring the internationally recognized government.

But the war has stalled, with the territory divided; the Houthis still firmly in control of Sanaa; and civilians across the country suffering from hunger, poverty and outbreaks of diseases such as cholera, in one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

Although an end to the conflict still seems remote, the cease-fire, which began in April, has mostly held, bringing down the overall level of violence. Biden also said Friday that the Saudi leadership had agreed to continue facilitating the delivery of food and humanitarian goods to civilians in Yemen.

The Saudis have been seeking more help in defending the kingdom from cross-border drone and missile attacks from the Houthis, which have grown increasingly frequent and sophisticated, often hitting Saudi oil facilities and spreading fear in Saudi cities.

During the war, the Houthis have received financial and military aid from Iran, the Saudis’ regional nemesis, and Western and Saudi officials have accused Iran of expanding the Houthi arsenal as an indirect means of harassing the kingdom.

Saudi officials have bristled at Biden’s determination to restore the 2015 international agreement limiting Iran’s nuclear program, arguing that broader action is needed to stop Iran’s support for militias across the Arab world.

The kingdom has bought many billions of dollars in weapons from the United States over the years, but the Biden administration has restricted U.S. support for the Saudi war effort to defense because of anger in Washington over the many Yemeni civilians killed in Saudi airstrikes.

Most of those attacks were carried out with U.S.-made jets and bombs, and a recent report by the Government Accountability Office found that the United States had failed to properly assess the extent of damage to civilian life by the Saudi-led coalition’s air campaign.