UN in talks to lift Saudi blockade on Yemen : Eliasson
The United Nations (UN)’s Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson says the world body has been engaged in talks to end the blockade that Saudi Arabia has imposed on impoverished Yemen.
The official made the comments during a Thursday news conference in Geneva, adding that the talks are aimed at opening more ports in Yemen to allow in fuel and other supplies.
He did not specify, however, what individuals, groups or governments the UN has been in talks with over the Saudi blockade.
Yemen has been under military strikes by Saudi Arabia on a daily basis since March 26. The attacks are supposedly meant to undermine the Houthi Ansarullah movement and restore power to fugitive former Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansour, a staunch ally of Riyadh.
For nearly six months, Saudi warships have enforced a strict naval blockade on Yemen. The blockade has hampered aid shipments to the country, which imports 90 percent of its food.
Eliasson, the UN official, expressed hope that the UN-brokered peace talks to end the crisis in Yemen would start by the end of October, while calling on both the Houthi Ansarullah movement and the representatives of Hadi to participate in the negotiations without pre-conditions.
Earlier this month, Yemen’s Saba Net news agency quoted Ansarullah spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam as saying that the movement will agree to a seven-point peace plan proposed by the UN, which also requires adherence to UN Resolution 2216, if other parties to the conflict also commit to the initiative.
The resolution, which was adopted in April, calls for the withdrawal of Ansarullah fighters from the areas under their control and for them to lay down arms.
Yemen’s General People’s Congress (GPC), the party of former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, has also accepted the peace plan.
Ansarullah fighters took control of the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, in September 2014 and are currently in control of large parts of the Arab country. The revolutionaries said the government of Hadi was incapable of properly running the affairs of the country and containing the growing wave of corruption and terror.
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