\nJEDDAH: The United Nations envoy for Yemen held talks Tuesday with the country\u2019s president, as he sought to shore up a truce in key port Hodeidah.<\/p>\n
\nMartin Griffiths met with the Yemeni authorities after seeing Houthi militant leaders in Sanaa on a tour aimed at ensuring both sides make good on a ceasefire deal agreed in Sweden last month.<\/p>\n
\nYemen\u2019s internationally recognized leader Abed Rabbo Mansour\u00a0Hadi expressed his \u201csupport for the efforts and work\u201d of Griffiths at the talks in the Saudi capital, the Saba news agency reported.<\/p>\n
\nThe head of the president\u2019s office Abdullah al-Alimi wrote on Twitter that Hadi remained committed to the Sweden accord and stood ready to open up \u201call humanitarian access.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nGriffiths is set to brief the UN Security Council Wednesday on the ceasefire deal, AFP repoted.<\/p>\n
\nUN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has asked the Security Council to approve the deployment of up to 75 observers to Hodeidah for six months to monitor the ceasefire, Reuters reported.<\/p>\n
\nThe council will need to take action on Guterres’ request by about Jan. 20, when a 30-day authorization for an advance monitoring team led by retired Dutch General Patrick Cammaert expires.<\/p>\n
\nIt was not immediately clear how many monitors were currently on the ground with Cammaert.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nThe United Nations has said the monitors are not uniformed or armed.<\/p>\n
\nIn his Dec. 31 proposal to the council, seen by Reuters, Guterres described the proposed 75-strong team as “a nimble presence” to monitor compliance of the deal and establish and assess facts and conditions on the ground.<\/p>\n
\nThe UN has said the truce has largely held in the city since the agreement came into force on Dec. 18.<\/p>\n
\nThe pro-Hadi Arab coalition, which includes Saudi Arabia, has accused the Houthis of dozens of violations of the truce.<\/p>\n
\nGriffiths is looking to push on with steps agreed \u00a0 in Sweden, including the redeployment of rival forces from Hodeidah.<\/p>\n
\nHe is also hoping to bring the sides together again for a new round of peace talks later this month.<\/p>\n
\nThe war in Yemen was sparked when the Houthis seized the capital Sanaa in 2014.<\/p>\n
\nThe conflict has unleashed the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, according to the UN, which says 14 million Yemenis are on the brink of famine.<\/p>\n
\n*With AFP and Reuters<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" UN envoy holds talks with Yemen president amid preparations to boost Hodeidah monitoring team JEDDAH: The United Nations envoy for Yemen held talks Tuesday with the country\u2019s president, as he sought to shore up a truce in key port Hodeidah. Martin Griffiths met with the Yemeni authorities after seeing Houthi militant leaders in Sanaa on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":28413,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28412","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\/28412","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=28412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}