Selective pressure on Saudi shipping, guaranteed passage for everyone else, and a list of terms for the table.
By The Levant Files Editorial Team
Over the past month, the discourse coming out of Sana’a has moved from demanding that Saudi Arabia negotiate to asserting that Riyadh is preparing to do so. Behind that shift sits a clearer strategic design: use control of Bab al-Mandab to impose costs on Saudi Arabia alone, keep international shipping moving, and turn that leverage into recognition of Sana’a as the actor any settlement must go through.
Signals Of A New Negotiating Round
On 22 September, Al-Khabar al-Yemeni reported that prominent Saudi broadcaster Dawood Al-Shirian, citing sources, had referred to the possibility of a new round of talks with the Houthis. The Sana’a-aligned outlet presented this as evidence that Riyadh is looking for an exit after the recent escalation. That interpretation belongs to the outlet; no official Saudi statement has confirmed that formal talks are under way.Five days earlier, on 17 September, the same outlet, citing a Reuters report, wrote that Riyadh had approached China over Iran and the Houthis, adding that Egypt and Oman were involved in parallel diplomatic efforts.
Two tracks are therefore visible: possible direct Saudi-Sana’a contacts and an indirect Saudi effort to work through regional and extra-regional intermediaries.
Sana’a’s Terms
Writing in the Sana’a newspaper 26 September on 14 September, Ahmed al-Zubairi set out what amounts to a negotiating framework: lifting the blockade, returning control over resources, compensation for wartime destruction and an end to external tutelage.
Al-Zubairi did not rule out a political settlement. Instead, he argued that continued military pressure should push Riyadh towards accepting these terms.
The sequence corresponds with an analysis published by Al-Masirah in May, which argued that Sana’a should enter future negotiations holding strong instruments of pressure and identified the Red Sea and Saudi economic vulnerabilities among those instruments. Four months later, the September escalation can be read as the application of that prescription.
Control Without Closure
The central element of the emerging approach is that Sana’a is not presenting the closure of Bab al-Mandab as its objective.
On 15 September, the Sana’a Foreign Ministry declared that normal navigation through the strait remained safe, pointing to a 10 September notice from the Humanitarian Operations Coordination Center stating that international shipping was unaffected except by previously announced restrictions on Saudi vessels.
A detailed analysis published by 26 September on 12 September explained why Saudi Arabia is the target. The East-West Pipeline carries crude from the kingdom’s eastern fields to Yanbu on the Red Sea, reducing Saudi dependence on the Strait of Hormuz. Tankers leaving Yanbu for Asian markets, however, must still pass through Bab al-Mandab.
The newspaper’s analysis therefore portrayed Riyadh as squeezed between two maritime chokepoints: Iran at Hormuz and Sana’a at Bab al-Mandab. Crucially, it also stressed that vessels falling outside the announced restrictions could continue to sail.
Reporting from outside the Houthi media ecosystem lends support to part of this premise. BBC Arabic reported on 18 September that Houthi advances along Yemen’s western coast had brought their forces closer to the strait at a time when Bab al-Mandab had acquired greater importance for Saudi exports because of disruption at Hormuz.
From Leverage To Recognition
On 14 September, 26 September approvingly summarised foreign reporting arguing that Sana’a seeks to normalise its control of the Red Sea environment and ultimately force insurers and governments to deal with it directly.
On 20 September, the newspaper amplified an argument attributed to the US publication Responsible Statecraft: Saudi Arabia may eventually have to negotiate on terms considerably more favourable to Sana’a than it previously envisaged.
Two days later, another 26 September analysis claimed that fighting on the western coast had undermined Saudi strategy and exposed the limits of US willingness to defend Saudi interests directly. The figures it provided concerning defeated formations originate from the Houthi side and have not been independently verified.
Read together, this material points towards three objectives being pursued in parallel.
Militarily, Sana’a seeks to make Saudi intervention prohibitively expensive. Economically, it aims to demonstrate that it can impose targeted costs on Saudi energy and maritime traffic without disrupting everybody else. Politically, it wants to convert territorial and maritime control into de facto recognition as an authority that determines who can safely use Bab al-Mandab.
The sources examined by TLF do not state this final objective in those terms. It is The Levant Files’ assessment of the pattern emerging from Sana’a’s messaging — and potentially the most consequential element for any future settlement.
The Mirror-Image Reading From Aden
The opposite interpretation comes from the government side.
On 9 September, Aden-based legal adviser Akram al-Shatiri argued that Saudi military activity was not an attempt to destroy the Houthis but rather pressure intended to strengthen Riyadh’s position before negotiations.
There is a striking convergence here. Both camps describe the escalation as potentially preceding negotiations. What they disagree about is who is forcing whom towards the negotiating table.
What To Watch
Sana’a-aligned commentators have begun sketching a sharper bargain for Riyadh: step back from confrontation — and, by implication, from alignment with Washington and Israel — accept a bilateral settlement, and Saudi commercial access to the Red Sea becomes secure. Refuse, and Sana’a retains the ability to impose costs specifically on the kingdom.
For now, this argument appears in the work of sympathetic analysts rather than in formal statements from the Houthi leadership.
The decisive test will be whether Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, Mahdi al-Mashat or chief negotiator Mohammed Abdul-Salam adopts this language in the coming weeks.
Equally significant will be any official Saudi confirmation of contacts — and whether Muscat or Beijing emerges as a diplomatic channel.
Until then, the available evidence supports a firm but limited conclusion: Sana’a is preparing for a negotiating phase and is seeking to enter it as a recognised maritime power rather than as a rebel movement.
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