UN to gather Yemen conflicting sides in Geneva
The sides to the Yemeni conflict are to convene in Geneva for the first time since 2016 under the auspices of the United Nations (UN) in an attempt to revive stalled peace talks.
Representatives from Yemen’s running government, which is allied to the popular Ansarullah movement, and the country’s former regime, backed by Saudi Arabia, are to participate in the talks in the Swiss city on Thursday.
UN envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths will be supervising the talks and is likely to shuttle between the two sides, as face-to-face meetings between them are unlikely.
Khaled al-Yamani, the foreign minister of the former regime, told AFP that the chances of face-to-face negotiations between the two sides “are slim to none.”
The news agency reported that the talks would likely focus on a prisoner exchange deal and the fate of the Yemeni port city of al-Hudaydah, which has been under escalated Saudi-led military attacks since June.
The two sides last held marathon negotiations — also organized by the UN — in Kuwait, trying unsuccessfully to hammer out a “power-sharing” accord.
Separately, Yemeni Minister of Legal Affairs Abdulrahman Ahmed al-Mukhtar said that “US aggression” had blocked the UN Security Council and International Criminal Court (ICC) from mounting a war crimes investigation into an August 9 Saudi-led attack that killed at least 40 children, among others.
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