Yemen Peace Effort Falters as Houthis Refuse to Attend Talks

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AL MUKALLA, Yemen — Peace talks aimed at ending Yemen’s civil war that were set to begin on Monday faltered before they could start, when delegates representing Yemen’s Houthi rebels refused to attend.

The setback followed several aborted cease-fires and a previous round of failed negotiations to end Yemen’s 14-month conflict. The latest talks, in the Persian Gulf state of Kuwait, were supposed to bring together the Houthis and delegates from Yemen’s government, which was driven from power by the Houthis last year.

There is growing international alarm at the civilian toll from the hostilities, as well as frustration at the continuation of a conflict effectively locked in a stalemate since last summer. More than 6,200 people have been killed, and most of the population in Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest state, requires some form of humanitarian assistance.

The war has shaken the Middle East, aggravating regional rivalries while drawing foreign troops to Yemen, including Persian Gulf soldiers who are part of a Saudi Arabia-led military coalition fighting on the side of the Yemeni government. A power vacuum has empowered the country’s powerful affiliate of Al Qaeda, allowing it to seize territory, money and arms.

The Houthis said they did not attend the talks because of what they described as violations of a shaky truce that was supposed to begin last week but never fully took hold. Abdurahman Alahnomi, a spokesman for the Houthis, said that “the delegation will travel after it ensures that the other party commits to the cease-fires.”

Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, the United Nations special envoy to Yemen, who has been shuttling between the combatants for months, said in a statement that the talks were “delayed.” He scolded the Houthis and their allies, saying he hoped they would “not miss this opportunity that could save Yemen the loss of more lives.”

There had been optimism about the talks. Both sides had made conciliatory statements, and there was a feeling that the combatants were beginning to see diminishing returns from the war. Yet no breakthrough was expected. The negotiations were designed to ease the violence and confront manageable issues, like prisoner exchanges, in hopes of creating a climate for a broader political dialogue.

Even that limited agenda was contested. A Houthi delegate said the group was opposed to a proposal that would allow the government, led by President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, to return to the capital, Sana. The Houthis favored a consensus government with a new prime minister, with Mr. Hadi remaining as a figurehead until a new president could be elected, according to the delegate, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on behalf of the rebels.

A sense of urgency surrounded the negotiations in Kuwait, because of the hair-trigger nature of the violence and because neither the Houthis nor the government fully controlled the constellation of armed groups on the ground.

April Longley Alley, who researches Yemen for the International Crisis Group, said that several powerful political figures on both sides of the conflict could scuttle the diplomacy.

Most prominent among them is former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who stepped down in 2012 but has retained his influence — malign, his critics say. Mr. Saleh and his loyalists have been allied with the Houthis throughout the war. But his exclusion from the talks that led to the cease-fire last week, as well as doubts about his political future in Yemen, meant that “he has the incentive to be a spoiler — a dangerous one,” Ms. Alley wrote in a blog post on the crisis group’s website.

On Monday, both sides reported fresh violations of the tentative truce, including airstrikes and clashes in Marib province, east of Sana.

Beyond the negotiations in Kuwait, tangled questions about Yemen’s political future are looming, including the demand by a southern Yemeni movement for an independent state.

North Yemen and South Yemen were separate countries until 1990. After unification, southerners complained that they were being marginalized by the country’s northern leaders, leading to a movement calling openly for secession.

The current war has hardened those demands. Southerners, with backing from the Saudi-led coalition, successfully routed the Houthis and Mr. Saleh’s forces from much of the south, making them less willing to relinquish control to any central authority.

The secessionists held huge rallies in the southern port city of Aden for a second consecutive day on Monday — to ensure that the delegates in Kuwait understood they would not yield, said Nasser al-Yazidi, a leading figure in the Southern Movement.

If the government ignores their demands, the southerners will confront them, “like we did with Saleh and the Houthis,” he said.