UN to unveil new Yemen peace plan in 2 months

new york — The United Nations’ new peace envoy for Yemen said Tuesday he will present a plan within two months to re-launch negotiations to end the war but warned that missile strikes on Saudi Arabia risked derailing the effort.

Addressing the Security Council, Martin Griffiths said a possible sharp escalation from the missile attacks on Saudi Arabia and intensified fighting could “in a stroke, take peace off the table.”

“My plan is to put to the council within the next two months a framework for negotiations,” Griffiths said in his first council report since taking over as special envoy in February.

Griffiths cited the increased number of ballistic missile launches, intensified military operations in northwest Saada governorate, ongoing air strikes and movements of forces in the Hodeidah region as worrisome developments.

“Our concern is that any of these developments may, in a stroke,

Our concern is that any of these developments may, in a stroke, take peace off the table. I am convinced that there is a real danger of this Martin Griffiths, UN peace envoy

take peace off the table. I am convinced that there is a real danger of this,” said the envoy.

War-wracked Yemen is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, according to the United Nations, with 75 per cent of the population — 22 million people — in need of aid, seven million of whom are at risk of famine.

More than 9,200 people have been killed since the Saudi-led alliance joined the Yemen war, according to the World Health Organization.

A cholera outbreak has also killed 2,000 people and infected one million. —

AP Col. Turki Al Malki, spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, watches as officials uncover a wreckage from Iranian-Houthi drones during a press conference in Khobar, Saudi Arabia. The coalition warned Houthis of a ‘painful’ response if they continue to...