Yemen’s military has attacked Houthi rebels as the United Nations warns that fighting could escalate, and Turkey’s Kurdish peace bill wins approval in parliament.
Here’s a look at developments across the Middle East on Saturday. Full coverage can be found here.
Yemen's military attacks Iranian-backed Houthis
The attacks were in response to the Houthis’ recent strikes in central and eastern Yemen. Col. Majed al-Nazili, spokesperson for Yemen’s military, said the attacks targeted the rebels’ “sites and capabilities” on multiple front lines, without elaborating further.
He said the attacks were aimed at defending the military's security, marking a major escalation since a truce in 2022 largely halted fighting.
The country’s civil war pits the Iran-backed Houthis against a Saudi-led coalition allied with Yemen’s internationally recognized government.
On Friday, United Nations envoy Hans Grundberg urged the parties to exercise restraint.
“Yemen today faces a greater risk of renewed large-scale conflict than at any point since the UN-brokered truce of April 2022,” he said in a statement.
Turkey’s Kurdish peace bill wins approval in parliament
A Turkish draft law aimed at advancing a peace effort with Kurdish militants passed its first hurdle in parliament on Saturday, with a parliamentary committee approving the measure that includes a conditional pardon-like mechanism for thousands of former fighters.
Last year, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, declared its decision to disarm and disband as part of the peace initiative aimed at ending the decades-long conflict with the Turkish state.
The draft legislation, expected to be debated and approved in the general assembly early next week, defines the procedures for the group’s disarmament and the rehabilitation of some PKK members. It would suspend some prison sentences for people convicted of membership in the group and postpone the prosecution of others.
The measures would come into effect once Turkey’s National Security Council confirms that the group has disbanded and surrendered all weapons.
The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people since it began in the 1980s and has spilled into neighboring Iraq and Syria.
Turkey and its Western allies consider the group a terrorist organization.
