ANSD : Sweden says outcome of Yemen peace consultations to be conveyed to UN Friday

FRI 29 - 11 - 2024

Date: Dec 13, 2018
Source: The Daily Star

Sweden says outcome of Yemen peace consultations to be conveyed to UN Friday

Yemen warring parties agree to reopen Sanaa airport

_Reuters
DUBAI: Sweden’s Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom said the outcome of Yemen’s peace consultations will be conveyed to the U.N. Security Council on Friday. The consultations, which started last week near Stockholm, took place in "positive spirit and good faith", she said in a telephone interview with Reuters.

Yemen warring parties agree to reopen Sanaa airport

RIMBO, Sweden/ADEN, Yemen: Yemen’s warring parties agreed Wednesday to reopen Sanaa airport in the Houthi-held capital and resume oil and gas exports, sources said, as Western nations pressed them to accept confidence-building steps before the end of U.N.-led peace talks in Sweden. The development comes as the U.S. Senate voted to advance a resolution to end U.S. military support for the Arab coalition in Yemen’s civil war, setting the stage for debate and a later vote in the chamber.

President Donald Trump’s administration had urged lawmakers to back continued military support for the coalition. But several of his fellow Republicans joined Democrats to give the measure the 60 votes needed to advance.

The Iranian-aligned Houthi movement and the Saudi-backed government of Abed Rabbou Mansour Hadi were still discussing a United Nations proposal on the contested port city of Hodeida, a lifeline for millions of Yemenis facing starvation.

Hadi’s premier Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed told reporters in the government’s base in the southern port of Aden that there might not be enough time for full agreement on Hodeida as the talks, the first in over two years, conclude Thursday.

“We talked about [it] a lot but with the limited time we have, we can’t talk about all the points in this round. The important thing is to build confidence and then go into the details of the Hodeida file,” he said.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was due to attend the final day of talks to support efforts to launch a political process that would end the nearly 4-year-old war.

Guterres called Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman to discuss Yemen, the Saudi state news agency reported.

Another round of talks could be held in early 2019.

Meanwhile, U.S.-based Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project tracking Yemen’s civil war reported that the conflict has killed more than 60,000 people, both combatants and civilians, since 2016.

The Houthis hold most population centers, including Hodeida and Sanaa, from which it ousted Hadi’s government in 2014.

A U.N. spokeswoman said both parties had received a “final package” of agreements covering the status of Hodeida, Sanaa airport.

“We hope to receive positive responses,” she said.

The two parties agreed that international flights would stop at a government-held airport for safety procedures to be carried out before flying in or out of Sanaa, two sources familiar with the talks said.

Houthi delegate Abdel-Majid Hanash said international flights from and to Sanaa would stop in Aden and the airport in Sayun in the south, but the U.N. would oversee the safety procedures.

The U.N. declined to comment.

As part of confidence-building measures, both sides agreed to resume oil and gas exports to help shore up central bank coffers.

Revenues would be used to pay salaries in both government and Houthi-held areas, delegates from both sides told Reuters.

The Arab military coalition that intervened in the war in 2015 to restore Hadi’s government controls Yemen’s air space.U.N. envoy Martin Griffiths, trying to avert a full-scale assault on Hodeida, where coalition forces have massed on the outskirts, is asking both sides to withdraw from the city.

His proposal envisions an interim entity being formed to run the city and port and international monitors being deployed.

Both sides have agreed to a U.N. role in the port, the entry point for most of Yemen’s commercial imports and vital aid, but differ on who should run the city.

On Hodeida, Yemen’s Foreign Minister Khaled al-Yamani told the Associated Press his side would only agree to a full rebel withdrawal while government forces would “reposition themselves into our barracks out of the outskirts of the city.”

A police force would then be set up to patrol Hodeida, he said.

Later Wednesday, Hanash said his side accepted some of Griffiths’ proposals, specifically the one on Hodeida. He told reporters the rebels agreed to halt all fighting in Hodeida, withdraw troops from the city and its port, and later also from the province, while allowing U.N. oversight and the setting up of a local administration.

Yemen govt confirms Saudi soldiers on prisoner swap list

_{Agence France Presse}
RIMBO, Sweden: Yemeni government sources confirmed Wednesday that a mass prisoner swap with rebels included Saudi soldiers fighting alongside state troops, as U.N.-brokered peace talks neared their end.

Two government officials, including one in the delegation at the talks in Sweden, told AFP that the list of names they requested released by the Houthi rebels included Saudi soldiers. Both requested anonymity.

A spokesman for the Arab coalition and a U.N. official did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Nearly four years into a war that has pushed 14 million Yemenis to the brink of mass starvation, the Saudi-backed government of Abed Rabbou Mansour Hadi and Houthi rebels, linked to Riyadh's arch-rival Iran, have been in U.N.-brokered talks since Dec. 6 in the rural Swedish town of Rimbo. The talks are expected to close Thursday.

The government and rebel delegations Tuesday signed a mass prisoner swap, exchanging more than 15,000 names in the first agreement between the two parties in years.

The deal will be overseen by the International Committee of the Red Cross, which warns the exchange could take weeks.

Mediators are pushing for a de-escalation of violence in rebel-held Hodeida, a port city vital to the delivery of humanitarian aid, and the reopening of Sanaa international airport.

The government accuses the rebels of smuggling arms through Sanaa airport and Hodeida on the Red Sea. The coalition has severely restricted flights to and from Sanaa and shipments through Hodeida.

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