LONDON: The Houthis have “killed the Stockholm Agreement” that they signed with the Yemeni government in Sweden last December, the Yemeni army’s spokesman Brig. Abdo Abdullah Majali said Wednesday.
Majali added that the Houthis have failed to uphold clauses regarding the withdrawal of troops from Hodeidah, and that anything “taken from the Yemeni government will be recovered by force.”
The army spokesman then asked how it was possible to trust the Houthis when they are “carrying out acts of aggression against the Yemeni people, and continuously targeting Yemeni army positions.”
The Yemeni army “maintains its right to respond” to violations committed by the Houthis who “do not understand the language of dialogue,” Majali told Asharq Al-Awsat.
The Stockholm Agreement was signed by the Yemeni government and the Houthis in December last year. The main components of the agreement are a prisoner exchange, steps toward a cease-fire in the city of Taiz, and a cease-fire agreement on the city of Hodeidah and the ports of Hodeidah, Salif and Ras Issa.
The governments of Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have accused the Houthis of breaking the cease-fire in Yemen’s key port of Hodeidah and refusing to withdraw their forces in accordance with the Stockholm Agreement.
The ambassadors from the three countries urged the UN Security Council in a letter circulated Tuesday to call on the Houthis to implement the agreement and to condemn their continuing violations of the cease-fire.
Meanwhile, the United Nations announced its Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths was holding intensive talks with the warring parties in the Yemeni conflict in an effort to implement the Stockholm Agreement, revive hope of redeployment from Hodeidah and open humanitarian corridors.
Griffiths met Yemen’s Vice President Ali Mohsen Al-Ahmar and Foreign Minister Khalid Al-Yamani in Riyadh on Tuesday, and was due to meet Houthi leaders in Sanaa.
Houthis have ‘killed the Stockholm Agreement’: Yemeni official
Houthis have ‘killed the Stockholm Agreement’: Yemeni official
Iraq starts investigations into Daesh detainees moved from Syria
BAGHDAD: Iraq’s judiciary announced on Monday it has begun its investigations into more than 1,300 Daesh group detainees who were transferred from Syria as part of a US operation.
“Investigation proceedings have started with 1,387 members of the Daesh terrorist organization who were recently transferred from the Syrian territory,” the judiciary’s media office said in a statement, using the Arabic acronym for Daesh.
“Under the supervision of the head of Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council, several judges specializing in counterterrorism started the investigation.”
Those detainees are among 7,000 IS suspects, previously held by Syrian Kurdish fighters, whom the US military said it would transfer to Iraq after Syrian government forces recaptured Kurdish-held territory.
They include Syrians, Iraqis and Europeans, among other nationalities, according to several Iraqi security sources.
In 2014, Daesh swept across Syria and Iraq, committing massacres and forcing women and girls into sexual slavery.
Backed by US-led forces, Iraq proclaimed the defeat of Daesh in the country in 2017, and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) ultimately beat back the group in Syria two years later.
The SDF went on to jail thousands of suspected extremists and detain tens of thousands of their relatives in camps.
Last month, the United States said the purpose of its alliance with Kurdish forces in Syria had largely expired, as Damascus pressed an offensive to take back territory long held by the SDF.
In Iraq, where many prisons are packed with Daesh suspects, courts have handed down hundreds of death sentences and life terms to people convicted of terrorism offenses, including many foreign fighters.
Iraq’s judiciary said its investigation procedures “will comply with national laws and international standards.”
