Date: Feb 4, 2019 Source: The Daily Star Yemen’s warring parties meet on ship to discuss stalled pullout DUBAI/ADEN, Yemen: Representatives from both sides in the Yemen conflict met on a ship on the Red Sea Sunday in a U.N.-led push to implement a stalled troop withdrawal from Yemen’s main port of Hodeida as agreed at December peace talks, a U.N. official told Reuters. The United Nations is overseeing the implementation of a cease-fire and troop withdrawal accord in Hodeida, the main entry point for most of Yemen’s imports, in the hope it will lead to a political solution to the almost 4-year-old war. The warring parties were meant to withdraw their forces by Jan. 7 as part of efforts to avert a full-scale assault on Hodeida, but have failed to do so as the Iranian-aligned Houthi group and the Saudi-backed government disagree on who should control the city and ports. Sunday’s meeting was the third time the U.N.-led Redeployment Coordination Committee convened since it was formed in December, bringing together the Houthis with the Saudi-backed, internationally recognized Yemeni government and U.N. mediators. The parties met on a U.N. ship because attempts to convene the third meeting in territory held by coalition forces failed because the Houthis were unwilling to cross the front line, sources have told Reuters. The first two meetings were held in territory under Houthi control, after which the head of the U.N. mission tasked with overseeing the deal, Patrick Cammaert, shuttled between the two parties. The vessel picked up a delegation from Yemen’s internationally recognized government at an offshore meeting point in the Red Sea before sailing to Hodeida to pick up the Houthi delegation, a U.N. statement said Saturday. The spokesman for the Yemeni government’s delegation to the RCC Sadiq Dweid told Reuters the committee had discussed Cammaert’s proposals for the troop withdrawal at Sunday’s meeting. “The meetings will continue,” Dweid added. The truce has largely held in Hodeida, but clashes have increased in recent weeks and U.N. Yemen envoy Martin Griffiths has urged all parties to reduce tensions. Violence has continued in other parts of the country not subject to the deal. Griffiths’ office said the meeting had begun Sunday. In other developments, Yemen’s deputy chief of staff died from wounds sustained last month in a drone attack by Houthi rebels on the country’s largest air base, the information minister said. “Major General Saleh al-Zandani, deputy chief of staff, was martyred while undergoing treatment after he was wounded in the terrorist bombing at the Al-Anad base,” Moammer al-Eryani tweeted. Zandani was among 11 wounded in the Jan. 10 drone attack on a military parade at the base in Lahej, a province some 60 kilometers north of Yemen’s second city Aden. Seven other loyalists, including a high-ranking intelligence official, were killed in the attack. The conflict has been bogged down in military stalemate for several years. An Arab military coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates intervened in Yemen in 2015 to try to restore the government of Abed Rabbou Mansour Hadi after it was ousted from power in the capital Sanaa by the Houthis in late 2014. The Houthis, who say they are enacting a revolution against corruption, control most urban centers in the poorest Arabian Peninsula nation while Hadi’s government controls the southern port of Aden and string of coastal towns. Pope Francis said Sunday that he was following the humanitarian crisis in Yemen with great worry and urged all sides to respect international agreements and ensure food reaches suffering Yemenis.