Yemen’s warring sides agree prisoner swap before Ramadan

Kuwait Deputy FM optimistic about reaching Yemen deal

KUWAIT CITY, May 26, (Agencies): Yemen’s warring parties have agreed to a prisoner exchange before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in early June, sources from both delegations told Reuters on Thursday.

The decision was a show of goodwill between the Iran-allied Houthis and Yemen’s Saudi-backed exile government as peace talks in Kuwait aimed at ending a year-long war dragged into a second month. However, the two sides appeared to differ on the number of prisoners to be released.

Sources from the Houthi militia’s delegation said 1,000 prisoners would be swapped, while a government source said the agreement entailed the release of “all detainees,” who number more than 4,000.

The sides will submit a list of prisoner requests to UN mediators within two days, after which “local committees” would be created to facilitate the exchanges, the Houthi sources said.

At a news conference earlier in the day, UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed told reporters officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross had met with the delegations to explain its possible role in a release process.

A prisoner swap has been a longsought sign of progress for the talks.

Government sources at the UN-backed peace talks said in early May an agreement had been struck to release all prisoners within 20 days, but Houthi delegates said they had only considered the proposal, not approved it.

A tentative UN-backed ceasefire has been in place since last month to give the peace talks in Kuwait a chance. Both sides have regularly accused the other of violations.

Meanwhile, Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Suleiman Al-Jarallah has expressed his optimism that Yemeni parties would reach a comprehensive agreement, during their peace negotiations currently hosted by Kuwait, to end the country’s conflict.

In a statement to KUNA and Kuwait TV on Thursday, Al-Jarallah said the peace negotiations held under the supervision of UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmad “are on the right track”.

He added that there was keenness of the participating delegations to reach a solution for the country’s crisis.

He said that the delegations entered a phase of consultations regarding details on differences, noting that there is a common ground which will contribute to reaching an agreement to end the conflict.

Meanwhile, British Minister for the Middle East and North Africa Tobias Ellwood lauded Kuwait’s role in hosting the peace talks and providing appropriate atmospheres so as to find a peaceful solution.

In a similar statement to KUNA, Ellwood stressed that Kuwait has playing a key role in the Middle East region, expressing his satisfaction about the abidance of all parties by the ceasefire in Yemen.

He commended efforts of Ould Cheikh Ahmad aiming to put an end to Yemen’s crisis.

The UN special envoy to Yemen on Thursday called for an economic rescue plan for the war-battered and impoverished Arab nation.

“I propose the establishment of an economic rescue authority as soon as possible to save the Yemeni economy from further deterioration,” Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed told a press conference.

He said the body would comprise experts proposed by Yemen’s warring parties which are locked in five-week-old peace talks in Kuwait.

It would be consultative in nature and have the full backing of the United Nations and its agencies as well as the World Bank among others, Ould Cheikh Ahmed said.

“The Yemeni economy requires an urgent intervention ... Economic deterioration is expected to boost inflation and price rises,” he said.

Even before the war escalated in 2015, Yemen was one of the poorest nations on earth with unemployment of more than 40 percent and over half its 25-million population living under the poverty line.