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Yemen govt says ready to re-start talks with rebels
ADEN, Nov 1, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Yemen’s government said Thursday it was ready
to re-start peace talks with Huthi rebels, as international pressure to end
the years-long conflict intensifies.
The United Nations said a day earlier it aimed to relaunch the talks
within a month, after a previous attempt collapsed in September when the
rebels refused to attend.
“The Republic of Yemen welcomes all efforts to restore peace,” a
government statement carried by the state-run Saba news agency said.
“The government of Yemen is ready to immediately launch talks on the
process of confidence-building, primarily the release of all detainees and
prisoners, as well as those who have been abducted or subject to enforced
disappearance,” it said.
The United States this week called for an immediate end to the hostilities
in Yemen, where Washington backs a Saudi-led coalition fighting alongside the
government against the Iran-backed Huthis.
In September, the Huthis refused to travel to Geneva for planned peace
talks, accusing the UN of failing to guarantee their delegation’s return to
the Yemeni capital Sanaa and to secure the evacuation of wounded rebels to
Oman.
Previous talks broke down in 2016, when 108 days of negotiations in Kuwait
between the government of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi and the rebels
failed to yield a deal.
US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo this
week called for an end to the Yemen war, including air strikes, in an
implicit acknowledgement that the Saudi-led coalition was involved in the
bombing of civilians.
Both the Huthis and Saudi Arabia along with its allies stand accused of
transgressions that could amount to war crimes.
The coalition has been blacklisted by the UN for the maiming and killing
of children in a country where 14 million people now face starvation.
Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, is the target of the longest
drone war in US history. In 2012, the US expanded a covert war against the
Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which Washington categorises
as the radical group’s most dangerous branch.
The World Health Organization estimates that nearly 10,000 people have
been killed in Yemen since 2015, when Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened
after the Huthis seized Sanaa.
Rights groups say the toll could be as high as 50,000.
BSS/AFP/MSY/1600 hrs