Jordan agrees to host Yemen talks about prisoner exchange

Jordan has announced that it will host a round of UN-brokered negotiations between delegates from Yemen’s Ansarullah Movement and representatives loyal to former Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi to discuss a prisoner swap deal between the two warring sides.

The Jordanian Foreign Ministry announced in a statement on Tuesday that the kingdom had accepted a request from UN Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths to host the talks.

The statement, however, did not say when the meeting would take place.

Jordan received a request from Griffiths last Thursday to host a “specific meeting” between officials from the former Yemeni government and Ansarullah Movement.

“We will study the request in consistence with our clear stance on the issue of Yemen, which is to support all efforts leading to a resolution to the conflict in accordance with international legitimacy references and resulting in the relief of Yemenis’ suffering, and we will deliver our response to the request as soon as possible,” Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman al-Safadi said at the time.

The development came on the same day that Jordanian King Abdullah II received pro-Hadi Yemeni Foreign Minister Khaled Yamani. 

During the meeting at al-Husseiniya Palace, the monarch affirmed Jordan's support to Yemen and its efforts to achieve security and stability.

Ansarullah delegates and Hadi loyalists held a round of peace negotiations in Rimbo, north of the Swedish capital city of Stockholm, last month. The talks resulted in the announcement of a break-through agreement.

The document includes three provisions: a ceasefire along the Hudaydah front and the redeployment of armed forces out of the city and its port; an agreement on prisoner exchange; and a statement of understanding on the southern Yemeni city of Ta’izz.

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating military campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the aim of bringing Hadi’s government back to power and crushing the country’s Ansarullah Movement.

According to a new report by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, the Saudi-led war has so far claimed the lives of around 56,000 Yemenis.

ME