Yemen’s warring parties meet face to face

Representatives from Yemen’s Houthi rebels and the internationally recognised government held direct talks for the first time in Sweden yesterday, in another positive step towards finding peace.

The UN-led negotiations in the Swedish village of Rimbo have so far resulted in an agreement for a prisoner swap, but the fate of Hodeidah and its port have proven to be sticking points in the consultations, a UN official said.

“Hodeidah has proven to be the most difficult,” the source said, adding that progress on control of the port was crucial to ending the war.

The government has demanded a complete Houthi withdrawal from the city, which the rebels have repeatedly rejected.

UN envoy Martin Griffiths and his team have moved between the two parties in the previous three days of talks.

Yesterday’s face-to-face talks focused on a prisoner swap deal,

a member of the government delegation told The National.

He said the head of the government’s and rebels’ committees for prisoner swaps met to discuss the deal.

All members of the committees were to be part of the meeting, but the government objected. “We are very keen as the government of Yemen to have real progress on this issue but there was a technical problem this morning because the head of the Houthi committee on prisoner exchange is not part of the rebel delegation,” said Ali Ashaal, a member of the government delegation.

The meeting was limited to the two men because it was the only way to progress, Mr Ashaal said.

The government delegate said it would soon issue a list of people it wanted released from Houthi prisons.

Mr Ashaal said that the deal would be implemented in the next few days, expressing hopes that some high-ranking military and political officials may be released soon as a gesture of good will.

The Houthis are expected in coming days to release three high-ranking commanders of the Yemeni army, including Gen Mahmood Al Soubaihi, the former minister of defence, and Maj Gen Naser Hadi, tyhe brother of Yemeni President Abdrabu Mansur Hadi.

The rebels will also release the leader of Yemen’s Al Islah party, a government source said. Abdullah Al Soubaihi, the younger son of the former defence minister, told The National that some officials in the government had told his family his father would be released soon.

Members of the Saudi-led coalition will also be released as part of the agreement.

“The prisoner swap agreement that was signed in the last few days includes all the detainees who were captured by the Houthi militia since the war erupted in March 2015,” said Mohammed Askar, the Yemeni Minister of Human Rights.

Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdelsalam said his delegation was open to more talks with the government if progress was made during the coming days.

Consultations are expected to last until December 14, according to the government delegate, with both sides under pressure to agree on confidence-building measures that will allow formal peace negotiations to resume.