UAE supports early UN talks on Yemen
TOMORROW’S SECURITY COUNCIL MEETING ‘A WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY’
The UAE yesterday said it supports a UN plan for peace talks to be held in Sweden by year-end. His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, yesterday received Mohammad Abdullah Al Yadoumi, chief of Yemen’s Al Islah party, and Abdul Wahab Ahmad Al Anisi, the party’s secretary-general.
Shaikh Mohammad reiterated the UAE’s keenness to support all efforts made to achieve security and stability for the Yemeni people.
Al Yadoumi and Al Anisi expressed their thanks and appreciation for the role played by the UAE and the Saudi-led Arab coalition in supporting and standing by the Yemeni people in the face of Al Houthi militias, and helping Yemen restore its security and stability.
Yemen forces yesterday halted an offensive on the lifeline port of Hodeida. Three military officials told AFP that pro-government forces were “ordered” to stop their assault against Al Houthis until further notice, but resume operations should the rebels attack.
“We welcome early convening of UN-led talks in Sweden,” Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash, tweeted yesterday. He said the coalition would “urge all parties to take advantage of a window of opportunity to restart the political process” at a UN Security Council meeting tomorrow. “We look forward to hosting [UN Yemen envoy] Martin Griffiths this week in Abu Dhabi,” Gargash added.
After failed peace talks in September, the UN is pushing to host a new round of negotiations between the Arab alliance and the Iran-linked Al Houthi rebels by the end of the year. Gargash said Hodeida is quiet and the port is operating. “We are working closely with the UN on expanding humanitarian assistance to all areas of Yemen.”
The minister of technical training and vocational training in the so-called Al Houthi government, Mohsen Al Naqeeb, has defected, becoming the second senior official to break away from the Iran-aligned militant group in less than a week.
On Sunday, Abdul Salam Jaber, who had served as information minister for Al Houthis, announced his defection after arrival in Saudi Arabia, which is leading an Arab coalition fighting Al Houthis in Yemen.
The defections come amid successive military setbacks for Al Houthis in several parts of war-devastated Yemen.
Al Naqeeb announced his defection and lashed out at Al Houthis in remarks published yesterday in pan-Arab newspaper Asharq Al Awsat.
He accused Al Houthis of involvement in financial corruption, plundering public revenues and monopolising oil and gas sales in areas under their control. “Financial corruption deprives people, who are not loyal to Al Houthis of having a [decent] life,” he told Asharq Al Awsat.
Al Naqeeb belongs to the General People’s Congress, the party of Yemen’s former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was killed by Al Houthis last December.
Lost opportunity
“After Saleh’s assassination, Al Houthis lost the popular and political covering, as well as suffered political losses in addition to military blows,” he said.
He added that Saleh’s killing allowed him to keep a low profile before fleeing from the militia-controlled capital Sana’a.
It was not immediately clear where Al Naqeeb is now staying, although some reports suggest he has taken refuge in Saudi Arabia.
“My defection comes at the right time,” Al Naqeeb said.
This month, the government forces, supported by the coalition’s air power, started a major operation to liberate the strategic port city of Hodeida from Al Houthis. They have since made swift advances.
Government forces, backed by the coalition, have temporarily halted their attacks in the militant-held port city of Hodeida for “humanitarian reasons”, an army official said yesterday.
“The temporary suspension aims at allowing the evacuation of the injured and the departure of those who want to leave,” the army’s spokesman Abdo Majali told Dubai-based television Al Arabiya.
The Yemeni army said military operations in the Red Sea city stopped yesterday to help set up safe corridors for Hodeida’s residents who would like to leave, a source said.
But the operations will later resume in order to liberate the western city and its strategic port from Iran-aligned Al Houthi extremists, the source added.