UN proposes Yemen rebels share control of key port with government
RIMBO(Sweden): The UN has asked Yemen’s Hoiuthi rebels to withdraw from Hodeida as part of a ceasefire deal placing the flashpoint port city under joint control, according to a document seen by AFP on Monday.
The document, verified by sources in both the government and rebel delegations at UN-brokered talks in Sweden, stipulates that the Saudi-led military coalition fighting the Houthis would cease an offensive on the rebelheld city in exchange for a Houthi withdrawal.
The area would then be put under the control of a joint committee and supervised by the United Nations. The document does not propose the deployment of UN peacekeeping troops.
The government was expected to issue a formal response to the proposal “soon”, state representative Hadi Haig said.
“The special envoy’s paper is under study. The response will come soon, God willing,” Haig said on the sidelines of the talks.
Houthi representative Salim Al Moughaless said the rebels would only consider a withdrawal as part of a full political solution to the conflict.
“The discussion is long and ongoing,” Moughaless said. A UN official in Rimbo was not immediately reachable for comment.
Yemen’s Saudi-backed government and the rebels convened in the rural village of Rimbo, Sweden on Thursday for what is expected to be a week of talks on a war that has killed upwards of 10,000 people in less than four years.
The Hodeida proposal is a significant step closer to the demands of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, whose government was driven out of the capital Sanaa in a rebel takeover in 2014 that included the seizure of Hodeida -- the most valuable port in a country now on the brink of famine.
The Red Sea city has since June been at the heart of a government offensive. Its destruction would worsen the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, where the UN estimates 14 million people face starvation.
Shipments to Hodeida, including humanitarian aid, have been severely restricted by the coalition. Houthis are now ensconced in residential neighbourhoods to hold off government forces.
“Military operations are ongoing in different areas,” coalition spokesman Turki Al Maliki told reporters in Riyadh as the Sweden talks entered their fifth day.
“The rebels have fortified their defence lines inside Hodeida city,” he said. “We are working to create safe humanitarian corridors from Hodeida to Sanaa.”
The UN has regularly urged the Saudi-led coalition to suspend operations in the densely-populated city, home to 600,000 people and a traditional conduit for 90 percent of food imports to Yemen.