SAUDIS OFFER CEASEFIRE IN YEMEN, END TO BLOCKADE

Saudi Arabia proposed what it described as a new peace offering Monday to end the kingdom’s nearly six-year-old war on the insurgency in Yemen, pledging to lift an air-and-sea blockade if the Houthi rebels agree to a cease-fire.

The offering, announced by Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, came as pressure has escalated on the country to help break a stalemate in the Yemen conflict, which the United Nations has called the world’s worst man-made humanitarian disaster.

Millions of Yemenis, including children, are verging on famine partly because of the blockade, which has choked the delivery of food and fuel to the country, the Arab world’s poorest.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan was quoted by Arab news media as saying at a news conference that if the Houthis agreed to a cease-fire monitored by the U.N., his country would allow the reopening of the airport in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, and would permit fuel and food imports through Hodeida, a Yemeni seaport. Both are controlled by the Houthis.

“The initiative will take effect as soon as the Houthis agree to it,” Prince Faisal was quoted as saying.

The Houthis appeared to reject the Saudi proposal. A spokesman for the group, Muhammad Abdussalam, said on al-Masirah, a Houthiaffiliated TV channel in Yemen, that the Houthis would not agree to discuss a cease-fire until Saudi Arabia first lifted its blockade.

“The ideas put forward have been discussed for more than a year, and there’s nothing new in it,” he said of the Saudi foreign minister’s announcement.