Yemen Warring Parties Reach Deal on Reopening Sanaa Airport

Oil and gas exports to resume

Jason Ditz 

Posted onDecember 12, 2018CategoriesNewsTagsYemen

Progress has been made in the Yemeni peace talks being held in Sweden, and while there is growing doubt that there will be time to finalize every issue, some new deals were finalized on Wednesday.

The biggest aspect of this deal will be the reopening of the Sanaa International Airport, albeit only to domestic flights. Under the deal, all international flights to Houthi-held Sanaa have to stop in the Saudi-dominated city of Aden for a security check.

This was the deal pro-Saudi factions had before, but with an important difference. They’d wanted the rights to unconditionally search all Sanaa-bound flights, but now the UN will be conducting any security-related searches.

Somewhat less important, there has been a deal to resume oil and gas exports from Yemen, which would bring in some badly needed money for the central bank. Yemen is, however, a fairly small exporter even in the best of times, so this isn’t exactly going to bring much relief to their failing economy.

https://news.antiwar.com/2018/12/12/yemen-warring-parties-reach-deal-on-reopening-sanaa-airport/