War and pieces: Political divides in southern Yemen

Lunch discussion to mark the launch of ECFR's newest paper “War and pieces: Political divides in southern Yemen“. 

International attention to the Yemeni conflict has shifted in recent months from the Saudi-led war against the Houthis in the north and west of the country to a major clash within the anti-Houthi coalition between the UAE supported Southern Transitional Council’s forces and those of the coalition supported internationally recognised government of President Hadi. The Saudi sponsored Riyadh Agreement to solve this crisis has faced major difficulties and many questions remain unanswered, particularly the role of the UAE. Meanwhile the UN remains out of the southern debates and has failed to revive talks since the December 2018 Stockholm agreement.  By contrast, European Union and member states leaders are taking notable initiatives in Yemen which may help towards some progress both with the implementation of Riyadh and more widely on the war situation. 

Following on the recently published ECFR paper War and pieces, political divides in southern Yemen,  the authors presented the findings of their report and discuss other relevant recent developments. Saleh al Batati acted as discussant to the points made in the talk and the paper.

• Raiman Al-Hamdani is a consultant at DeepRoot Consulting, specialising on human development, local communities and indigenous peace-making methods. Raiman is a Visiting Fellow in ECFR's MENA Programme. 
• Helen Lackner is an independent researcher and has worked in Yemen since the 1970s. Her latest book is Yemen in Crisis (UK edition 2017, US edition 2019, Arabic forthcoming 2020). Helen is a Visiting Fellow in ECFR's MENA Programme. 
• Saleh al-Batati is a Journalist Fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, a Yemeni journalist and a 2019 News and Documentary Emmy Award winner. In 2019, al-Batati served as south Yemen director responsible for key leader surveys for Pechter Polls of Princeton. 
• Ellie Geranmayeh is the Deputy Director ofthe Middle East and North Africa Programme at ECFR. Ellie leads on the MENA programme's Iran portfolio, specialising in European policy in relation to Iran, particularly on the nuclear and regional dossiers. She most recently wrote about the killing of Soleimani in the POLITICO article “Crisis in Iran will drive wedge between Europe and Washington”.