Ban calls for 2-week ceasefire in Yemen

Peace talks begin in Geneva as violence escalates

geneva — UN chief Ban Ki-moon launched Yemen peace talks in Geneva on Monday with a call for a humanitarian truce as warplanes from a Saudi-led Arab coalition pounded the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa on Sunday night.

Ban said the truce, called to mark the start of the holy month of Ramadan later this week, should last for at least two weeks to allow lifesaving supplies into the country. “Today Yemen’s very existence hangs in the balance. While the parties bicker, Yemen burns,” he told reporters.

Yemeni Foreign Minister Reyad Yassin Abdulla dismissed the possibility of any ceasefire soon.

“A ceasefire, for what? If they are still occupying Yemen, they are still killing innocent people, if they are still destroying everything, what kind of ceasefire?,” Abdulla told reporters in Geneva. But he said his exiled government might consider a “limited” truce if the Houthis agreed to withdraw from cities, including Aden and Taiz, and free more than 6,000 prisoners.

Representatives of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s gov- ernment were in Geneva for the talks, but a plane carrying members of the Houthi’s Ansarullah group and Saleh’s General People’s Congress party had to land in Djibouti after what Yemeni political sources said was Egypt’s refusal to give the plane overflight rights.

The plane was later allowed to leave for Geneva. —