17 June 2023: NRM’s political track held a discussion session with Abdul Bari Taher, a leading Yemeni thinker, on the Yemeni crisis and the role of civil forces in stopping the war and reaching peace.
In the session, which was moderated by Nadia Al-Najjar, a member of NRM’s Education Track, Taher pointed out that the danger of war still exists despite the improvement that has occurred since the beginning of the truce, adding that the armed militias and their leaders have no interest in stopping the war and are not serious about seeking peace, and will stand in the face of peace advocates for their interests.
Taher said that the situation of no war and no peace is very dangerous because it drains everyone and establishes grounds for future conflicts, pointing out that the Saudi-Iranian agreement can be an introduction to a promising solution, but no positive results have been reflected so far, and that it will be a great disaster if the regional countries involved in the conflict solve their problems and leave Yemen to its own fate and disavow their responsibility at this stage.
On the Legitimate Government, Taher said that the regional powers are not serious about supporting the Legitimacy, which is being weakened and dismantled in the South by supporting the militias deployed also in Taiz, Marib, Hodeidah, and other places.
Speaking about the political parties in Yemen, Taher said that the parties are divided, they fled the battle before it happened and were distributed on the map of the war and the militias, which are more dependent on the regional conflict and have become part of the problem, he said.
On the forces of peace at home, Taher stressed that the calls for peace are still elitist and do not have a significant impact among the people, and have not yet turned into influential forces in the national arena, and they are weak and dispersed, and did not agree on joint action to have an effective impact, stressing the need to exert all efforts to bring down the barrier of fear among people and turn the rejection of war and the call for peace into a popular act everywhere even if there were sacrifices.
At the end of the meeting, a number of participants expressed their happiness to discuss with a national figure and a great thinker such as Taher and considered his speech an element of inspiration that gave everyone positive energy and a strong spirit to achieve the goals of NRM and its efforts to stop the war and achieve peace, and raised the sense of responsibility to start to find an inclusive framework for all peace initiatives inside and outside Yemen.