WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is accelerating efforts to halt the war in Yemen, a move diplomats and U.S. officials said is fueled by concern over the humanitarian toll and by eroding support in Congress for Saudi Arabia heightened by the slaying of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis issued coordinated calls this week for a cease-fire in Yemen, where conflict between a Saudi-led coalition and Iran-allied Houthi militants has sparked the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.
Read: Yemen faces globe’s worst famine in 100 years
The new administration push reflects simmering frustrations over the three-year-old war. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have been unable to deliver a crippling battlefield blow to Houthi insurgents, but have provoked international condemnation with operations such as the August airstrike on a bus filled with schoolchildren on a field trip. More than 40 students were killed.
Also: Khashoggi was strangled when he entered Saudi consulate, Turkish prosecutor says
Those frustrations were compounded by the Oct. 2 killing of Khashoggi by Saudi agents in the country’s consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, bringing widespread calls for a re-evaluation of U.S. ties to Riyadh. Mattis and Pompeo are pressing Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to help jump start United Nations-brokered peace talks in coming weeks.
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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