Norway held secret talks with Houthis

The leader of the Norwegian opposition Progress Party, which has 21 parliamentary mandates out of 169 in the Norwegian parliament, Sylvie Listhaug, said that the Norwegian government is behaving very naively by negotiating with the Ansar Allah movement (Houthis) ruling in northern Yemen.

Earlier, NRK reported, citing an email from the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, that Norway had held secret talks with the Houthis and confirmed that it had been in contact with them for a long time in connection with the conflict in Yemen. The Houthis announced an attack on three US and Israeli ships, the Norwegian NRK news agency reports, citing a statement by the deputy.

"I think we won't be able to sit down and talk to them. I think that the Norwegian authorities, unfortunately, behave very naively in meetings with terrorist organizations, whether it is (the Palestinian movement) Hamas, the Taliban* or the Houthis in Yemen," the agency quotes Listhaug as saying.

It is also noted that Listhaug believes that Norway should, together with the United States, Great Britain and other countries, contribute to the military efforts against the Houthis.

Yemen, which has been in civil conflict for nine years, has been in a fragile lull since the Yemeni government and the Ansar Allah group failed to reach an agreement on extending the truce, which lasted for six months, on October 2, 2022. It was expected that at the beginning of this year, the parties to the conflict in Saudi Arabia would sign a "roadmap" to establish peace in that country, but against the background of the Houthi attack on ships in the Red Sea and airstrikes on Yemen by the United States and Great Britain, this process was suspended.