Date: Feb 19, 2019 Source: The Daily Star UN hoping for immediate pullout of forces from Yemen ports Rival parties agree to withdraw forces Associated Press UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations said Monday it hopes Yemen's warring parties will immediately carry out an agreement to pull their forces out of the key port of Hodeida and two smaller ports, as well as a U.N. facility holding enough grain to feed 3.7 million people for a month. U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters that implementation is key at Hodeida, which handles about 70 percent of Yemen's imports, the two other ports, and the Red Sea Mills, where the U.N. humanitarian chief has implored Houthi rebels to facilitate access. The conflict in Yemen began with the 2014 takeover of the capital, Sanaa, by the Iran-backed Houthis, who toppled the government of Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. An Arab coalition allied with Hadi's internationally recognized government has been fighting the Houthis since 2015. The fighting in the Arab world's poorest country has killed thousands of civilians and created the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Millions suffer from food and medical care shortages and the country has been pushed to the brink of famine. The two sides reached agreement at U.N.-brokered talks Sunday on the first phase of a mutual pullout agreed to in Sweden in December from the port areas, which was seen as a key step in attempts to end the conflict. On Sunday, Haq said government and Houthi representatives also reached "some tentative agreements" on a second phase of additional withdrawals, and are going back to discuss the results with their leadership. "We hope to convene another meeting as soon as we can to move ahead on the second phase, and we're hoping that that can be announced or held in the coming days or weeks," he said. Haq said the first phase covers mutual redeployment from the smaller ports of Salif and Ras Issa as well as Hodeida and from "critical infrastructure," including the Red Sea Mills. "We hope that now that we have the first phase agreed it will be carried out immediately," Haq said. U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock said in a statement on Feb. 7 that the U.N. and its humanitarian partners are scaling up to reach 12 million people in Yemen with emergency food, a 50-percent increase over 2018 targets. He said the Red Sea Mills, in a government-controlled area of Hodeida, holds critical supplies, but the U.N. has been unable to gain access since September while the grain possibly spoils in silos. He said the Houthis have refused to authorize the U.N. to cross front lines into government-controlled areas to access the Red Sea Mills, citing security concerns. Lowcock also deplored that two silos were hit by mortar shells last month and the resulting fire destroyed some grain - "probably enough to feed hundreds of thousands of people for a month." Rival parties agree to withdraw forces Reuters RIYADH / UNITED NATIONS: Yemen’s warring parties have agreed to start withdrawing forces from the main port of Hodeida under a U.N.-sponsored deal, the United Nations said, following weeks of diplomacy to salvage a pact that stalled over control of the Red Sea city. The Iran-aligned Houthi movement and the Saudi-backed government agreed in talks in December to withdraw troops by Jan. 7 from Hodeidah - a lifeline for millions facing famine - under a truce accord aimed at averting a full-scale assault on the port and paving the way for talks to end the four-year-old war. “The parties reached an agreement on Phase 1 of the mutual redeployment of forces,” the U.N. spokesman’s office said in a statement without giving details on what was agreed. Under Phase 1, the Houthis would withdraw from the ports of Hodeida, Saleef, used for grains, and Ras Isa, used for oil. This would be met by a retreat of Arab-led coalition forces from the eastern outskirts of Hodeida, where battles raged before a cease-fire went into effect on Dec. 18. The Houthis control Hodeida, the main entry point for the bulk of Yemen’s commercial and aid imports, while other Yemeni forces backed by the coalition loyal to ousted President Abed Rabbou Mansour Hadi are massed on the outskirts. The U.N. statement said the two sides also agreed “in principle” on Phase 2, entailing full redeployment of both parties’ forces in the Hodeida province. Two sources involved in the negotiations, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of discussions, said both sides had yet to agree on a withdrawal timeline or on a mechanism for local forces to take over security at the ports and city. “The U.N. is still discussing how to reduce the gap between the two sides on how to choose the forces that will control the city,” one source told Reuters. The parties may decide in 7-10 days on where they would re-position forces, the other source said, adding that Houthi fighters could pull back as far as 20 km from the port. Discord on withdrawal had delayed opening humanitarian corridors reach 10 million people on the brink of starvation in Yemen, the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country. Under the first phase, the two sides agreed to reopen main roads linking Hodeida to the Houthi-held capital Sanaa and in Yemen’s third city of Taiz, a U.N. source told Reuters. They also agreed to enable access to Red Sea Mills, which holds some 50,000 tons of World Food Program grain, enough to feed 3.7 million people for a month, the source said. Access to the site has been cut off since September due to fighting. “One of the problems with this process so far has been that there are political agreements on how to make progress, but then nothing happens on the ground,” said Elizabeth Dickinson, a senior analyst at International Crisis Group. “Now we theoretically have this agreement to move forward, we need to see someone move on the ground,” she said. The Hodeida truce has largely been respected but there have been intermittent skirmishes in flashpoints on the city’s edges. Hodeida became the focus of the war last year when the coalition twice launched an offensive to seize the port and weaken the Houthis by cutting of their main supply line. The alliance led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates intervened in 2015 to restore Hadi’s internationally recognized government that was ousted from power in Sanaa in late 2014. The Houthis control most urban centers while Hadi’s government is based in the southern port of Aden and controls some coastal towns. Western nations, some of which supply arms and intelligence to the coalition, have pressed for an end to the war that has killed tens of thousands of people. The conflict is widely seen in the region as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The Houthis deny receiving help from Tehran and say their revolution is against corruption.