Yemen’s president requests talks with the Houthis to resolve the civil conflict.
SANAA, April 4 (Xinhua) — According to the official Saba news agency, Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi called for the Houthi militia to sit at the negotiating table with the government to establish a political settlement and stop the seven-year civil conflict.
Hadi made the request at a meeting with his government’s ministers in his house in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital. “Return as a Yemeni political component that sticks to national principles, and return to the dialogue table to establish peace,” he said.
“Our hands reach out to you in the hopes of achieving a just and comprehensive peace and reconstructing our nation,” he stated, emphasising that the current cease-fire offers all Yemenis a significant opportunity to pave the path for “lasting peace.”
A two-month cease-fire negotiated by the United Nations (UN) and agreed to by Yemen’s warring parties went into effect on Saturday.
The cease-fire calls for all aggressive land, aerial, and naval military actions to be halted, as well as the admission of 18 fuel ships into Hodeidah’s ports and the operating of two commercial flights each week to and from Sanaa International Airport.
The Houthi militia controls the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah as well as the capital Sanaa.
The parameters also call for a meeting between the parties to discuss lifting the siege, opening the highways, and allowing humanitarian supplies into the government-controlled city of Taiz.
The UN Special Envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, said the cease-fire intends to provide Yemenis with a needed respite from violence and relief from humanitarian hardship, adding that the cease-fire can be extended beyond the two-month timeframe with the Yemeni parties’ approval.
In the last two days, however, the government and the Houthis have swapped charges of breaking the cease-fire.
If executed, the cease-fire would represent a huge milestone in Yemen’s seven-year civil conflict, as prior cease-fire agreements have all failed.
Yemen has been engulfed in civil conflict since late 2014, when the Houthi militia, supported by Iran, took control of several northern districts and drove Hadi’s Saudi-backed government out of Sanaa.
According to the UN, the conflict has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced 4 million people, and brought the country to the verge of hunger.
