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DUBAI—Saudi negotiators met with Iran-backed Houthi rebels in the Yemeni capital of San’a on Sunday to hammer out the final details of a long-term truce that could pave the way toward a lasting peace after eight years of war, officials said.
Saudi Arabia and the Houthis have been in direct talks for months, but the prospect of ending Yemen’s seemingly intractable conflict has advanced quickly since last month, when China brokered a detente between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Tehran has backed the Houthis since they took over swaths of Yemen in 2014, and Saudi Arabia led a coalition of Arab nations to dislodge the rebels in a war that created what the United Nations has called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
In recent days, the Saudis and the Houthis have reached an understanding to extend a cease-fire struck last year until the end of 2023, creating new momentum for a diplomatic end to the conflict. The truce technically expired in October, though there has been little violence since.
A Saudi delegation and a group of Omani mediators arrived in San’a, controlled by the Houthis, on Saturday for talks that include both an end to the Saudi-led coalition’s involvement in the conflict and a resolution to the civil war between Yemen’s internal factions, officials said.
“It is too early to say for sure that the negotiations in San’a will be successful, but it is clear that an atmosphere of peace hangs over the region, which gives cause for optimism and hope,” said a Houthi spokesman, Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, on Twitter.
In a gesture that showed the talks’ progress, Saudi Arabia released 13 Houthi prisoners on Saturday in exchange for a Houthi-held Saudi prisoner, Houthi officials said.
The prospect of ending Yemen’s conflict is among the rapidly moving diplomatic developments in recent weeks in the Middle East. In addition to Riyadh and Tehran restoring relations, Saudi Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman
is leading an effort to end the regional isolation of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after more than a decade of civil war.
Ending the Yemen war is a foreign-policy goal for the Biden administration, which has been involved in peace talks. The U.S. had provided Saudi Arabia with logistical and intelligence help in Yemen but reduced its role over the years amid allegations that the kingdom dropped U.S.-made cluster bombs near Yemeni villages.
President Biden declared a halt to U.S. backing as one of his first foreign-policy acts in February 2021. The conflict has taken a heavy toll on civilians, with about 377,000 deaths in late 2021, nearly 60% of them caused by issues like lack of access to food, water and healthcare, according to the U.N., problems that have disproportionately affected young children.
The country is now divided between the northwest, where the Houthis largely are in charge, and the rest of the country, where Yemeni factions backed by the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates hold power. The country’s main international airport in San’a and its biggest port, Hodeidah, are under blockade.
As part of the extended cease-fire under discussion Sunday, the Houthis would commit to joining official talks with Yemeni factions in the rest of the country to create a phased road map for a settlement, backed by the U.S. and the U.N. The Houthis would form negotiating committees with a Saudi-backed presidential council to lay out a path for a negotiated end to the civil war.
Under the deal described by Saudi and Yemeni officials, there would be a mechanism for payment of civil-service wages in Yemen as well as members of the armed forces. In addition, Saudi Arabia will further reopen the airport in San’a and ease the blockade on Hodeidah, the officials said.
The deal would also include a buffer zone with Houthi-held areas along the 800-mile-long Yemeni-Saudi border and a resumption of oil exports from government-held areas, the officials said.
Eventually, the Saudis would withdraw all troops, though such discussions will come later, the officials said.
If a cease-fire is agreed to and it holds, it would mark a dramatic departure from nearly a decade of conflict. Washington and Riyadh have long accused Iran of supplying weapons to the Houthis, who fired rockets and drones at Saudi cities for much of the war in response to the Saudi-led bombing campaign.
Iran publicly denied arming the Houthis, which would have violated a U.N. arms embargo. As part of its deal to restore relations with Saudi Arabia, though, Iran agreed to end weapons shipments to Yemen, The Wall Street Journal has reported.
—Michael Amon in Dubai contributed to this article.
Write to Summer Said at Summer.Said@wsj.com.
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