Yemen peace talks expected in Kuwait on April 17: Official
The talks will be on April 17 in Kuwait, accompanied by a temporary ceasefire, said Yemeni official
CAIRO: Talks aimed at ending Yemen’s war are expected in Kuwait next month along with a temporary ceasefire, a senior Yemeni government official said, raising the possibility of an end to violence that has killed thousands.
There have already been several failed attempts to defuse the conflict in Yemen, which has drawn in regional countries and triggered a humanitarian crisis in the country. “The talks will be on April 17 in Kuwait, accompanied by a temporary ceasefire,” the Yemeni official said, declining to be named. There were two inconclusive rounds of peace talks in Switzerland last year.
A Saudi-led coalition began a military campaign in Yemen a year ago with the aim of preventing Houthi rebels and forces loyal to Yemen’s ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh from taking control of the country. There was no immediate response from the Houthi militia regarding the prospect of talks.
The United Nations says more than 6,000 people have been killed since the start of the military intervention whose ultimate aim is to restore President Abdrabbo Mansour Hadi following his ousting by Houthi and pro- Saleh forces. “It has been a terrible year with air strikes, shelling and localized violence. An already very impoverished country has been put at a very sharp end,” Jamie McGoldrick, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Yemen, told reporters in Geneva.
One in ten Yemenis is displaced, he said, adding that half of those killed and injured were civilians.
He said UN special envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed had been in the capital Sanaa over the past few days for discussions with parties involved and also was in Riyadh.
“What they are hoping for is to put in place a ceasefire of some kind or a cessation of hostilities for a week or so prior to the talks and build confidence,” he said.
The spokesman for the Saudiled coalition and Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al Jubeir have in recent days said that any peace talks can take place only between Hadi and the Houthis, and through the UN special envoy.
Houthi officials travelled to Saudi Arabia this month for secret talks on the conflict that led to a pause in fighting on the border, a main battlefront of the war, and a prisoner exchange.