Kuwait role for Yemen crucial
KUWAIT CITY, Feb 18, (KUNA): Kuwait played a pivotal role in enabling Yemeni parties reach “strategic framework” for a settlement in the war-torn nation, said the visiting UN Special Envoy for Yemen Ismail Ould Sheikh Ahmed on Sunday.
Sheikh Ahmed, whose mission in Kuwait marked end of his tenure, made the assertion after he was received by His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah at Seif Palace in an audience attended by Deputy
Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah.
The resigning envoy said, “I was deeply honored with the meeting with His Highness the Amir. In fact, this is a grand occasion because I have come in the end of my mandate to express to him in person my appreciation and sentiments of endearment.
“As you know the references we had been talking about for a solution in Yemen dated back to the period we had spent in Kuwait.” He was alluding to summer of 2016 when Kuwait hosted marathon negotiations among the Yemeni parties — under the UN aegis. Although there was concord on some issues, the warring factions failed to reach a fundamental and viable settlement to the crisis.
“Kuwait had played a very significant role in proposing ideas and working out a strategic framework (for a settlement) .. We had actually approached a solution however as you might have known, some Yemeni parties stood in our way while seeking a final solution.
“Nevertheless, this visit is a personal credit for His Highness the Amir for his role.” Various quarters, namely the UN, have affirmed His Highness’ good-will role and has designated him as Humanitarian Leader.
His Highness the Amir has played mediation role for settling various conflicts across the world in general and the region in particular.
Sheikh Ahmed revealed that he would address the Security Council for the last time on Feb 27. “I came to meet His Highness and listen to his advices. Again I reaffirm my deep admiration toward His Highness in person, as well as the State of Kuwait.”
Also:
ADEN: Eight soldiers and 19 suspected members of al-Qaeda were killed in Yemen on Sunday, as the army launched an offensive against key outposts of the extremists, a military official said.
General Faraj al-Bahsani, governor of Hadramawt province, told AFP the army had taken control of the Mesini Valley west of Mukalla, a central site for al-Qaeda in southeast of the country.
Mukalla was the most populated Yemeni city under direct al-Qaeda control from 2015 to 2016, when the army and its regional military allies seized control of the port city.
Special forces trained by the United Arab Emirates — a key member of a Saudi-led alliance fighting alongside Yemen’s government forces — over the weekend launched the offensive, codenamed “Al-Faisal”, against alQaeda cells in oil-rich Hadramawt province.
Two soldiers were killed on Saturday in the offensive, which targets the Mesini and Amed Valleys — both in the vast province of Hadramawt and home to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
The two valleys are critical to control over Yemen’s southeastern coastline.
More than 9,200 people have been killed in the Yemen war since 2015, when the Saudi-led coalition joined the government’s fight against Iranbacked Huthi rebels.
Radical groups, including AQAP and the Islamic State group, have flourished in the chaos of the war, regularly launching attacks on government and military targets.
The United States, the only force known to operate armed drones over Yemen, has ramped up a long-running campaign against AQAP since President Donald Trump took office in 2017.