Yemen blasts 'malicious' US role in thwarting peace efforts

The head of Yemen's Supreme Political Council has hit out at US Special Envoy for Yemen Tim Lenderking for scuttling efforts to extend a UN-brokered truce, describing the truce situation in his country as a time bomb.

"We are in a no-peace, no-war state. While we had reached a good level of understanding during previous rounds of talks, the American envoy's trip to the region thwarted those efforts," Yemen's official Saba news agency quoted Mahdi al-Mashat as saying in Sana'a on Monday.

"While the US envoy pretends to be a peace dove, he is rather an ill-omened owl," al-Mashat said, referring to Lenderking's journey to the region starting on October 11 to purportedly support the UN-led negotiations to extend truce in Yemen. 

Mashat said "some aggressor countries" which benefit from the war in Yemen are pushing the country towards a "political and military explosion", citing the US envoy's "malicious role" in the failure of the peace talks. 

SS