Islam Times - MBS refused British-proposed ceasefire with Yemen

Islam Times - Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has refused to accept a British-proposed ceasefire to be discussed in the upcoming meeting with Yemen in Sweden, says a commentator.

Britain on Monday will present a draft resolution to the Security Council to address the ongoing war in Yemen, Ambassador Karen Pierce said.

The draft resolution is aimed at shoring up the UN push for peace talks and ensuring access to humanitarian aid for millions in Yemen facing famine.

Riaz Karim, the head of Veritas Center for Strategic Studies, said “the British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt had personally gone to see Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia and taken the resolution to him to show it to him before tabling it and the MBS actually threw a fit about it and he actually refused [it]. He didn’t like the idea.”

“It is very volatile at this point as to what MBS is going to say about this (negotiations),” Karim noted, adding that the Riyadh regime expects Britain to change the draft resolution to be desirable for the crown prince.

The commentator also argued that “the delegation that goes from Saudi Arabia to Sweden in order to go negotiate this deal has to be a high level delegation, because in the past twice the delegation from Saudi Arabia was a very very low-level delegation who could not make any decisions whatsoever.”

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched the devastating campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the aim of bringing the government of Yemen's former President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power and crushing the Houthis.