UN TALKS ACHIEVE BREAKTHROUGH ON YEMEN
RIMBO (SWEDEN): UN chief Antonio Guterres announced on Thursday a series of breakthroughs in peace talks with the warring parties in Yemen, including a ceaseire for a vital port.
In a highly symbolic gesture on the seventh and inal day of the Un-brokered peace talks in Sweden, Yemeni Foreign Minister Khaled Al-yamani and rebel negotiator Mohammed Abdelsalam shook hands to loud applause — but both later voiced scepticism in separate press conferences.
If implemented, the deal on the Hodeidah port, a key gateway for aid and food imports to a country where 14 million people stand at the brink of famine, would mark a major turning point after four years of devastating war.
But a number of key issues remain unresolved. A new round of talks is scheduled for the end of January.
International pressure has been mounting to halt the ighting between the Houthis and the government of Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, backed by Saudi Arabia and its allies.
Guterres, who lew in to Sweden late on Wednesday, announced that the government and Houthi rebels had agreed a ceaseire in the port of Hodeidah. The UN will play a “leading role” in monitoring the Red Sea port, which is under rebel control, and facilitate aid access for the civilian population.
“There is a ceaseire declared for the whole governorate of Hodeidah in the agreement and there will be both from the city and the harbour a withdrawal of all forces,” Guterres told reporters.
UN special envoy Martin Grifiths, who was due to brief the Security Council on Yemen on Friday, said the pullout should take place “within days.”
The rivals have also reached a “mutual understanding” on Yemen’s third city of Taiz, the scene of some of the most intense battles in the conlict, to facilitate the delivery of aid.
But no deal has been reached on the future of the airport in the capital Sanaa or on economic measures needed to spare the population from further hunger.
The January talks will focus on a framework for negotiations in a political process, which Guterres said was the only solution to the conlict.
Foreign Minister Khaled Al-yamani told reporters the deals were the biggest step forward since the outbreak of the war but remained “hypothetical”. Lead rebel negotiator said the Houthis had made “major concessions” on Hodeidah.
The rebels hold both Hodeidah and the capital Sanaa while the coalition controls Yemen’s maritime borders and airspace.
Sanaa airport has been closed to commercial lights for nearly three years and Grifiths said its fate would be discussed at the next round.
Analysts said the Rimbo talks progressed better than anticipated, two years after negotiations collapsed with no breakthrough after three months.
“The Sweden talks have achieved more than anyone expected,” the International Crisis Group told AFP.
“We have heard a different tone from the government of Yemen in these talks, and US pressure has clearly focussed minds in the Gulf.”
The Sweden talks mark the first meeting in two years between the northern Houthi rebels and the Hadi government that has been backed since 2015 by the Saudiled coalition.
The last round of talks, hosted by Kuwait in 2016, collapsed after more than three months of negotiations with no breakthrough.