ADEN: Yemen’s government said Thursday it was ready to re-start peace talks with Houthi militia, as international pressure to end the years-long conflict intensifies.
The United Nations said a day earlier it aimed to relaunch the talks within a month, after a previous attempt collapsed in September when the militia refused to attend.
“The Republic of Yemen welcomes all efforts to restore peace,” a government statement carried by the state-run Saba news agency said.
“The government of Yemen is ready to immediately launch talks on the process of confidence-building, primarily the release of all detainees and prisoners, as well as those who have been abducted or subject to enforced disappearance,” it said.
The US this week called for an immediate end to the hostilities in Yemen, where Washington backs a Saudi-led coalition fighting alongside the government against the Iran-backed Houthis.
In September, the Houthis refused to travel to Geneva for planned peace talks, accusing the UN of failing to guarantee their delegation’s return to the Yemeni capital Sanaa and to secure the evacuation of wounded militia to Oman.
Previous talks broke down in 2016, when 108 days of negotiations in Kuwait between the government of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi and the militia failed to yield a deal.
US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo this week called for an end to the Yemen war, including air strikes.
Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, is the target of the longest drone war in US history.
In 2012, the US expanded a covert war against the Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which Washington categorizes as the radical group’s most dangerous branch.
The World Health Organization estimates that nearly 10,000 people have been killed in Yemen since 2015, when Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened after the Houthis seized Sanaa.
Rights groups say the toll could be as high as 50,000.
Yemen government ready to re-start talks with Houthi militia
Yemen government ready to re-start talks with Houthi militia
- The United Nations said a day earlier it aimed to relaunch the talks within a month
- The US this week called for an immediate end to the hostilities in Yemen
Algeria inaugurates strategic railway to giant Sahara mine
- The mine is expected to produce 4 million tons per year during the initial phase, with production projected to triple to 12 million tons per year by 2030
- The project is financed by the Algerian state and partly built by a Chinese consortium
ALGEIRS: Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune on Sunday inaugurated a nearly 1,000-kilometer (621-mile) desert railway to transport iron ore from a giant mine, a project he called one of the biggest in the country’s history.
The line will bring iron ore from the Gara Djebilet deposit in the south to the city of Bechar located 950 kilometers north, to be taken to a steel production plant near Oran further north.
The project is financed by the Algerian state and partly built by a Chinese consortium.
During the inauguration, Tebboune described it as “one of the largest strategic projects in the history of independent Algeria.”
This project aims to increase Algeria’s iron ore extraction capacity, as the country aspires to become one of Africa’s leading steel producers.
The iron ore deposit is also seen as a key driver of Algeria’s economic diversification as it seeks to reduce its reliance on hydrocarbons, according to experts.
President Tebboune attended an inauguration ceremony in Bechar, welcoming the first passenger train from Tindouf in southern Algeria and sending toward the north a first charge of iron ore, according to footage broadcast on national television.
The mine is expected to produce 4 million tons per year during the initial phase, with production projected to triple to 12 million tons per year by 2030, according to estimates by the state-owned Feraal Group, which manages the site.
It is then expected to reach 50 million tons per year in the long term, it said.
The start of operations at the mine will allow Algeria to drastically reduce its iron ore imports and save $1.2 billion per year, according to Algerian media.
