A delegation from Yemen's Houthi rebels has flown into Saudi Arabia for talks with the kingdom on potentially ending the yearslong war tearing at the Arab world's poorest nation, officials said.
It remains unclear what terms are being discussed between Riyadh and the Iranian-backed Houthis, who have held Yemen's capital of Sanaa since September 2014.
But this first public trip by a senior Houthi delegation comes after regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran reached a Chinese-mediated détente earlier this year and as there has been a flurry of diplomatic activity between the different parties in the proxy war.
This latest effort appears to have begun with a visit Monday to Oman by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the assertive son of King Salman who launched the kingdom-led war back in March 2015.
Iran letters
Oman long has served as an interlocutor between both Iran and the Houthis during the war.
On Thursday, King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed reportedly received letters from Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi.
The substance of the letters was not publicly acknowledged by either country, but they came as an Omani delegation visited Houthi officials in Sanaa.
Field Marshal Mahdi al-Mashat, the head of the Houthis’ supreme political council, issued a statement via the Houthi-controlled SABA news agency praising the peace efforts.
“Peace was and remains our first choice, which must be worked on by everyone," al-Mashat said. “In response to the mediation of Oman, the national delegation will go, accompanied by the Omani delegation, to Riyadh to complete consultations with the Saudi side.”
10-member delegation
Early Friday, the state-run Saudi Press Agency acknowledged that a Houthi delegation had been invited to the kingdom, without elaborating.
The English-language newspaper Arab News, which is owned by a company long tied to the kingdom's royal family, reported that the 10-member Houthi delegation had flown into Riyadh on Thursday night.
Yemen’s conflict began in 2014 when the Houthis seized Sanaa and much of the country’s north. The internationa lly recognized government fled to the south and then into exile in Saudi Arabia.
The Houthi takeover prompted a Saudi-led coalition to intervene months later and the conflict turned into a regional proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, with the United States long involved on the periphery, providing intelligence assistance to the kingdom.
