{"id":23134,"date":"2018-11-25T04:22:47","date_gmt":"2018-11-25T04:22:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=23134"},"modified":"2018-11-25T04:22:47","modified_gmt":"2018-11-25T04:22:47","slug":"un-envoy-to-discuss-peace-with-yemens-president-in-riyadh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=23134","title":{"rendered":"UN envoy to discuss peace with Yemen’s president in Riyadh"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nSANAA: UN envoy Martin Griffiths met a Yemeni militia leader in insurgent-held Sanaa on Saturday and is to follow up by holding talks in Riyadh with Yemen\u2019s government in a drive to relaunch a peace process.<\/p>\n

\nIn a possible breakthrough despite skepticism on the government side, the envoy has said he has opened a dialogue with Houthi militia officials on \u201chow the UN could contribute to keeping the peace\u201d in the key port city of Hodeida.<\/p>\n

\nA UN source said Griffiths will hold talks on Monday in the Saudi capital, where Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and other officials have taken up residence.<\/p>\n

\nHe arrived in the capital on Wednesday ahead of planned peace talks in Sweden in December between the Iran-aligned Shiite Houthi rebels and pro-government forces backed by a Saudi-led military coalition.<\/p>\n

\nNo date has yet been set for the negotiations.<\/p>\n

\nThe UN-recognized government had not yet received \u201cany information from UN envoy Martin Griffiths about the talks in Sweden and what is to be discussed,\u201d Rajeh Badi, a government spokesman, said on Friday.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe are certain that the Houthi rebels have not yet taken a strategic and serious decision about peace,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThey (Houthis) will not let go of their weapons. They would tell us: \u2018You\u2019re dreaming if you think we\u2019re going to disarm.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\nGriffiths, however, struck a positive note on Friday during his first visit to Hodeida.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI am here to tell you today that we have agreed that the UN should now pursue actively and urgently detailed negotiations for a leading UN role in the port,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\nGriffiths urged Yemen\u2019s warring parties to \u201ckeep the peace\u201d in the rebel-held Red Sea port city, which serves as the entry point of nearly all imports and humanitarian aid into the impoverished country.<\/p>\n

\nHumanitarian organizations are desperate to see the current peace push translate into a more permanent halt to Yemen\u2019s four-year war.<\/p>\n

\nThe current peace push is the biggest since 2016. In September, UN-led peace talks faltered when the Houthis refused to travel to Geneva, accusing the world body of failing to guarantee their delegation\u2019s return to Sanaa or secure the evacuation of wounded rebels to Oman.<\/p>\n

\nPrevious talks broke down in 2016, when 108 days of negotiations in Kuwait failed to yield a deal and left rebel delegates stranded in Oman for three months.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nThe Arab coalition joined the conflict to bolster Hadi a year after the Houthis captured Sanaa.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SANAA: UN envoy Martin Griffiths met a Yemeni militia leader in insurgent-held Sanaa on Saturday and is to follow up by holding talks in Riyadh with Yemen\u2019s government in a drive to relaunch a peace process. In a possible breakthrough despite skepticism on the government side, the envoy has said he has opened a dialogue…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":23135,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}