{"id":44684,"date":"2021-02-21T22:24:40","date_gmt":"2021-02-21T22:24:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=44684"},"modified":"2021-02-21T22:24:40","modified_gmt":"2021-02-21T22:24:40","slug":"abbas-decrees-a-minimum-of-seven-seats-for-christian-palestinians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=44684","title":{"rendered":"Abbas decrees a minimum of seven seats for Christian Palestinians"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nAL-MUKALLA, Yemen:\u00a0The latest round of prisoner swap talks between the internationally recognized government of Yemen and the Iran-backed Houthis have stalled due to the Houthi movement\u2019s refusal to release journalists and politicians, Yemeni and UN officials said on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\nBrokered by the UN, the talks in the Jordanian capital, Amman, were resumed last month with the aim of releasing 301 prisoners on both sides. This built on previous talks that secured the swap of more than 1,000 prisoners in October.<\/p>\n

\nThe Yemeni government accused the Houthis of ruining the talks by refusing to release abducted journalists and prominent politicians and military commanders, and demanding that the government release their fake prisoners.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIt is the Houthi intransigence to blame for the crumbling of talks. They strongly rejected proposals for releasing journalists and other prisoners and sent us fake names of their prisoners and demanded us to release them,\u201d said a Yemeni government official with knowledge of the talks. He spoke to Arab News on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters.<\/p>\n

\nRelatives of the abducted people inside Houthi prisoners and local rights groups have expressed dismay over the breakdown of the prisoner swap talks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nAmat\u00a0Al-Salam\u00a0Al-Hajj, chairwoman of the Mothers of Abductees Association, an umbrella organization for thousands of female relatives of war prisoners, told Arab News that the news of the talks\u2019 failure came\u00a0as a\u00a0bombshell to her and families of prisoners who longed to seeing their loved ones set free.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe are not surprised by the failure of the talks since among the Houthi delegation is a person who is infamous for torturing prisoners,\u201d Amat\u00a0Al-Salam said. She added that the Houthi group refused to discuss releasing many people who were abducted from homes in Houthi-controlled areas and insisted on swapping combatants.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cMothers of the abductees are heartbroken since they were expecting to see their relatives released during the talks. This is a purely humanitarian issue and should not be mixed with the political file,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\nYemen watchers and officials believe that the Houthis have interpreted the US administration\u2019s conciliatory approach to the Iranian regime and the revoking of a terrorism designation against them as a green light to spoil prisoner swap talks and mount an offensive on the oil-rich city of Marib.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nNajeeb Ghallab, undersecretary at\u00a0Yemen\u2019s\u00a0Information Ministry and a political analyst, told Arab News on Sunday that\u00a0the Houthis became inflexible during talks shortly after the US removed their name from a list of terror groups, and only participated in the talks to avoid accusations that they are not serious about making peace.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe Houthi group is determined to use the prisoner file to market itself as being\u00a0serious\u00a0about complying with peace initiatives,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\nHe added that the number of prisoners of the Yemeni government and the Houthis during the current fighting is more\u00a0than\u00a0those who were released last year.<\/p>\n

\nFighting \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nSporadic fierce battles\u00a0were reported on Sunday on major battlefields in the central province of Marib and neighboring Jouf province, local government officials and media said.<\/p>\n

\nArmy troops and allied tribesmen repelled Houthi attacks on contested areas in Serwah and Al-Kasara, north and west of Marib city, after killing and wounding dozens of rebel fighters. Yemen\u2019s Defense Ministry and local media said that loyalists also mounted a counterattack on Houthis in Helan mountain as warplanes from the Arab coalition hit military reinforcements for the rebels coming from the capital, Sanaa, and heading to the battlefields in Marib.<\/p>\n

\nBrig. Gen. Ali Al-Houri, the commander of Brigade13 and Helan and Al-Mashjah battlefields, said that his forces had inflicted defeats on the attacking forces, denying media reports about territorial gains for the Houthis in Marib.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe are ready to defeat them. The combatants are steadfast and strong,\u201d the army commander said behind an army barricade in Marib.<\/p>\n

\nThe current escalation in fighting started earlier this month when the Houthis mounted an offensive to recapture the central city of Marib, the Yemeni government\u2019s last stronghold in the northern part of the country.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AL-MUKALLA, Yemen:\u00a0The latest round of prisoner swap talks between the internationally recognized government of Yemen and the Iran-backed Houthis have stalled due to the Houthi movement\u2019s refusal to release journalists and politicians, Yemeni and UN officials said on Sunday. Brokered by the UN, the talks in the Jordanian capital, Amman, were resumed last month with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spotlight_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44684","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=44684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44684\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}