Diplomacy

Fighting has escalated in the last weeks in Marib and Al-Jawf, as intense diplomacy is failing to deliver any tangible progress towards reaching a ceasefire. Both the Houthis and the coalition admitted several airstrikes conducted by the coalition on various parts of Yemen over the last week. Meanwhile, government forces say they are keeping the Houthis at bay as they defend Marib city. 

After his visit to Baku at the end of September, Georgian prime minister Irakli Garibashvili this weekend paid a working visit to Armenia for meetings with his Armenian counterpart Nikol Pashinyan. According to the website of the Georgian Government, the initiative was at the centre of the discussions in Yerevan between the two prime ministers. Garibashvili reaffirmed the readiness of Georgia to continue its active facilitation role in order to ensure peace, stability and the gradual transformation of the South Caucasus into a region of new opportunities, development and peace.

The UN special envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, is in Aden where he met with prime minister Maeen Abdulmalik to discuss ways to salvage the Riyadh agreement between the recognised Yemeni government and the Southern Transitional Council (STC). Grundburg stressed the need to implement the Riyadh agreement noting its economic, social and political benefits. 

Russian president Vladimir Putin hosted Turkish president Recip Tayip Erdogan in the Russian Black Sea city of Sochi on Wednesday (29 September) with both sides keen to consolidate Turkish-Russian relations despite a number of serious differences, especially on Syria. This face-to-face meeting was the first for the two presidents in the past year-and-a-half. Their previous meeting was in March 2020, at the Kremlin.

US President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, travelled to Saudi Arabia on Monday (27 September) to and later will travel to the UAE to discuss a range of “regional and global challenges”. With Yemen expected to be a key topic in the discussions, the Yemeni PM travelled back to Yemen.

The establishment of AUKUS, and subsequent submarine dispute, has exposed once more the EU's strategic vulnerability. At present the EU has no common foreign policy and no European armed forces capability, and strategic autonomy remains an illusion. But it is not a wrong goal to pursue, argues Maximiliaan van Lange in this op-ed.