Envoy: No side to blame for holdup in Yemen talks

SANAA, Yemen — The United Nations’ special envoy to Yemen sought to downplay the significance of the failure of peace talks to start, saying Saturday that he would head back to Yemen and neighboring Oman “within days” to try to agree on a new date.

Members of a delegation from the internationally recognized government arrived in Geneva for the talks, which were supposed to start Thursday, but their war rivals — Iranian-backed rebels known as the Houthis — did not, arguing they could not go because they did not have guarantees for their safe return.

Addressing a news conference in Geneva, U.N. envoy Martin Griffiths declined to blame either side for the failure to start the talks, saying that apportioning blame would not help Yemen. He insisted that the “consultation” — the term used by the U.N. to refer to the talks — had begun when he and his team held three days of talks with the government delegation. The results of the talks, he said, would be relayed to Houthi representatives in Oman and Yemen.

“We will have similar consultations with Ansar Allah [the Houthis’ formal name]. … We will go, and we will discuss with them the fruits of the discussions we’ve had here. So we will be going to Muscat and Sanaa to take up the issues that we will have discussed here. This is what I mean by, ‘We have begun.’”

He added: “There was an effort on the part of the Ansar Allah to come here. They wanted to be here. We just did not make it. It’s not the first time that we have difficulties in a Yemeni context. Criticizing one or the other doesn’t help Yemen. Things happen.”

The envoy’s refusal to apportion blame angered the Yemeni government.

Addressing a news conference that followed Griffith’s, Yemeni Foreign Minister Khaled al-Yamani said the envoy’s comments sought to “appease and find excuses” for the Houthis. Their failure to travel to Geneva, he added, showcased their “irresponsibility.”

The talks would have been the first between the warring sides in two years.

The Houthis insist on traveling to Geneva on an Omani flight, saying that would ensure their safe return to Yemen. “We want guarantees on our return to Yemen,” senior Houthi official Deif Allah al-Shami said Friday.

On Thursday, senior rebel official Mohammed Ali alHouthi said on Twitter that the Saudi-led coalition backing Yemen’s internationally recognized government refused to grant the Omani flight authorization to transfer the Houthi delegation to Geneva. He said that raised the risk of the Houthis being prevented from returning to Yemen, which he said happened in 2016 after a failed round of talks.

The coalition, which has imposed a land, sea and air blockade on Yemen since 2016, denied the allegation.

Yemen has been locked in a war pitting the Saudi-led coalition, backing the government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, against the Houthis since March 2015. Saudi-led airstrikes have hit schools, hospitals and wedding parties and killed thousands of Yemeni civilians.

The Houthis have fired long-range missiles into Saudi Arabia and targeted vessels in the Red Sea.

At least 10,000 people have been killed in Yemen’s conflict, which has exacerbated what the U.N. calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.