Al Jazeera Net - Special

Last week, Emirati forces were removing military communications and combat vehicles from their headquarters west of Aden as part of a plan to withdraw from Yemen, at a time when Saudi Arabia was trying to reach understandings with the Houthis to stop the border war.

Three days later, the Yemeni government and the UAE-backed transitional council reached an agreement under which the two sides would share power and the government would return to Aden. Saudi Arabia would also sponsor the formation of a 50:50 unity government between north and south Yemen.

The agreement also provides for the integration of military and security formations into the structures of the ministries of defense and interior.

According to informed political sources speaking to Al Jazeera Net, the war in Yemen is witnessing several variables, but in the end may lead to change the features of the poorest country in the Arabian Peninsula, where the specter of division remains.

Saudi Huthi understandings
In parallel with the agreement on the south, Saudi Arabia is seeking an agreement to stop the war between the two sides on the border, according to sources in the Houthi administration, Saudi Arabia has offered to stop the war on the border.

This comes days after the source of the island's talk about a contact between Khalid bin Salman, Deputy Defense Minister of Saudi Arabia, the head of the Supreme Political Council of the Houthis Mahdi Mashat.

The Houthi source, who preferred to remain anonymous, said the group wants to reach full understandings with the Saudi side, including a comprehensive ceasefire agreement, based on parity, lifting the siege and restoring what was destroyed by the war.

He pointed out that the negotiations between the two sides did not start until the moment, as the group offered a list of guarantees for the success of the negotiations, including the immediate cessation of air strikes and the opening of airports and ports, but the Saudis did not respond.

He explained that one of those guarantees is that Saudi Arabia will not intervene in the problems of the Yemenis, "but what happened is the opposite, as the aggression aircraft launched intensive raids up to fifty raids on the border areas."

The source declined to elaborate further on these understandings, saying only that "we are dealing with facts on the ground.

A Houthi leader declined to comment, saying only that it was a good step.

Hisham Sharaf said that his government welcomes any serious initiative to stop the war, but it will not be at the expense of the Yemeni people who have been victims of brutal aggression.

He added in an interview with Al Jazeera Net that the initiatives must be accompanied by actual movement on the ground, but the resumption of air strikes on Yemenis does not bode that Riyadh is seeking peace.

The Minister of Information and government spokesman Daifallah al-Shami said only to the island Net "When the agreement occurs we will have a talk."

Tension on the border
During the past two days, clashes escalated in Al-Malahez area in Saada province on the Yemeni-Saudi border, where fierce battles took place between the Houthis on the one hand and Yemeni forces backed by Saudi Arabia and the Saudi army on the other.

Similar battles took place in the provinces of Haradh and Mustaba in the province of Hajjah on the border, and fighter jets of the Saudi-UAE coalition a number of intensive air strikes, which killed and wounded from both sides.

According to a Yemeni military source in the Orouba Brigade, the Houthis wanted to achieve a lightning victory and regain the areas they lost on the border by exploiting the cessation of coalition air strikes. "They launched several attacks but failed."

Although military developments pose a threat to the truce between the Houthis and the Saudis, sources told Al-Jazeera earlier that a party in the Houthi group does not want to achieve a truce and a ceasefire agreement between the two sides.

Agreement to divide Yemen
But political observers say Saudi Arabia's signing of an agreement with the Houthis is an affirmation of the division of Yemen, and a failure of Riyadh's war in Yemen since March 2015, whose main goal was to restore the government of President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

Maan Damaj, a professor of philosophy at Sanaa University, told Al-Jazeera Net that contacts between the Saudis and the Houthis have been going on for the first year since the war.Huthi spokesman and head of delegation to the peace consultations Mohammed Abdul Salam Dhahran visited southern Saudi Arabia for more than a month.

The Yemeni political analyst pointed out that a settlement between the two parties may not be possible, and the closest vision would be to bring about a calm on the border and turn the entire war into an internal war in Yemen, which increases the risk of dividing the country.

He said that the division of the country will be imposed as a fait accompli without formal division, as there are no national forces may stand in front of what is happening.