As was widely anticipated, UN peace talks in Geneva designed to put a stop to the civil war which has engulfed the desert state of Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula for the past three months .

Held under the aegis of the UN special envoy to Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, the talks were aimed at producing a ceasefire between the two sides of this conflict, seen by many international observers as a proxy war between Saudia Arabia and Iran who are fighting for control of this strategically important Middle Eastern nation.

The talks failed however to find a bring make any progress towards peace between government forces loyal to President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and those of the Houthi movement which deposed him earlier this year.

The failure of the talks have also left unresolved the open enmity between Saudi Arabia, which supports the Sunni Hadi government, and the Iranians which have supplied arms and military training to the Shia Houthismaking this latest confrontation between the rival religious sects.

Predictably, both sides blamed the other for the collapse of the talks and fighting, which has already claimed 2800 civilian lives so far, broke out almost immediately.

On Friday, the Muslim holy day but all too often a day of violence, Saudi warplanes were in action over the skies of Yemen, bringing death and destruction in their wake. Ten people were killed during the course of air raids in the northern province of Jawf which shares a border with Saudi Arabia and bombers also struck the capital Sanaa which is now held by the Houthis as their northern stronghold in Saada province. There were also reports that the Saudi air force were in action over the provinces of Marib, Shabwa, Bayda and Aden in the centre and south of the country. At the same time, Yemen's foreign minister Reyad Yassin Abdullah made a statement that his government had no interest in reopening the Geneva peace talks or indeed of renewing any dialogue with the UN.

However, despite Abdullah's intransigence and the renewal of violence across Yemen, there was one glimmer of hope yesterday when the UN envoy Ahmed flew to Kuwait to attempt to restart the diplomatic efforts with some intensive shuttle diplomacy, the term used for acting as an intermediary between the two sides. During the course of this week he plans to fly between Riyadh in Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni capital Sanaa to have talks with all sides in the conflict but the omens are not good.

It has become depressingly clear that apart from killing people and destroying Yemen's infrastructure, the Saudi intervention has been a failure. Not only have the attacks alienated the people of Yemen but they have shown how powerless the Saudis have been in providing any meaningful assistance.

There is little likelihood that Hadi's government will be able to return to power in Yemen unless, of course, ground forces are inserted into the country and that seems unlikely. Yemen and Saudi also share a porous border which is over one thousand miles long and, although modern defences in the shape of a physical barrier have been constructed in the past two years, it is almost impossible to keep it secure.

The presence of the barrier has also alarmed the indigenous peoples on both sides and has added to a sense of general grievance, not least amongst the local smuggling community which crosses the border regularly and pays no attention to the defences. In any case, it is not fit for purpose as was shown last week when Houthi artillery opened fire on Saudi positions, killing four soldiers. According to latest reports, at least 43 people, civilians and troops, have now lost their lives in artillery fire and other skirmishes along the border since the campaign began.

There is also a metaphysical aspect to the defences. Not only does the barrier represent the determination of the Saudis to maintain their integrity in the face of what they see as Shia expansionism but it also encapsulates Houthi unwillingness to give up ground they have won in the fighting to date.

With both sides digging in for a lengthy war of attrition, there is little likelihood of an early diplomatic breakthrough. The Saudis are slowly coming to the conclusion that their military intervention has achieved little and will probably end in failure, while the Houthis understand that they can hang on to what they hold and therefore have no interest in entering into any dialogue. As for the Houthis' sponsors, Iran, the longer the confrontation lasts the better they will be able to suck their Sunni opponents into a quagmire from which escape will be very difficult.