Yemen’s internationally-backed government and Shiite Houthi rebels have resumed peace talks in Kuwait City. The ongoing conflict which began in March 2015 has claimed 9,000 lives to date.
The UN special envoy for Yemen has continued to urge the country’s warring parties to make “decisions that will prove your true intentions”, as peace talks resumed after government delegates abandoned a boycott threat.
“It’s time for decisive decisions that will prove your true intentions and national responsibilities to Yemenis,” UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed told a meeting of the two delegations late Saturday in Kuwait.
The talks resumed after Ahmed convinced the Yemen government to send its delegation to Kuwait after threatening to pull out of the peace talks which began in April.
The rebel delegation of Houthis and representatives of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh’s General People’s Congress party arrived in Kuwait on Friday.
Slow talks
More than two months of negotiations between President Hadi’s Saudi-backed government and the rebels have failed to make any headway.
The government has demanded implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2216 which requires the rebels and their allies to withdraw from areas they have occupied since 2014, including the capital Sanaa, and hand over heavy weapons.
Thousands of people have fled the fighting in Yemen. The UN has numbered civilian casualties at more than 9,000, following Saudi-led coalition airstrikes, shelling by militia and rebel groups, and other clashes.
Earlier this year, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR) reported the “alleged use of cluster bombs by coalition forces in Hajjah Governorate.”
jar/jm (AP, AFP)
