AL-MUKALLA: The internationally recognized government in Yemen has reiterated its determination to achieve enduring peace in Yemen and strengthen the UN-brokered truce, calling upon the international community to demand that the Houthis implement the truce and end their siege on the city of Taiz.
The government issued a statement to that effect after a meeting between Chairman of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council Rashad Al-Alimi, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and US Special Envoy for Yemen Tim Lenderking in Jeddah on Saturday.
Al-Alimi told the American officials that the world, particularly the US, should put more pressure on the Iran-backed Houthis to fully honor the truce, and to open roads in Taiz.
He stressed that his government was committed to a true, “just and comprehensive” peace based on United Nations’ resolutions.
The Yemeni leader said that military, economic and humanitarian assistance from the Saudi-led coalition and the UAE have so far prevented the country from falling apart, the official news agency SABA reported.
“I welcome the government’s bold leadership on the truce. We must see meaningful Houthi action to allow access to Taiz, Yemen,” Blinken tweeted after the meeting. He also thanked the Yemeni leader for respecting the truce.
Under the two-month truce brokered by the UN, which came into effect on April 2 and was renewed for a further two months in June, the Yemeni government ceased hostilities, facilitated the departure of commercial flights from Sanaa airport, allowed passengers with Houthi-issued passports to leave the country, eased restrictions on Hodeidah port, and agreed to a UN proposal on opening roads in Taiz.
Despite the government’s show of good faith, the Houthis rejected the proposal of the UN’s Special Envoy to Yemen Hans Grundberg that they should open a main road and several small roads around Taiz, instead unilaterally opening one dilapidated road.
Also on Saturday, the Yemeni government welcomed a joint statement from Saudi Arabia and the US issued after US President Joe Biden’s meeting with Saudi officials in Jeddah that supported strengthening and extending the truce and turning it into a lasting peace deal to end the war in Yemen.
“The government highly values the two countries’ affirmation of their full support for the Presidential Leadership Council, its role and commitment to the truce, and the steps that contributed to improving the lives of Yemenis throughout the country, including facilitating the import of fuel and the resumption of flights from Sanaa,” the government said in a statement.
The US and Saudi Arabia also called for the Houthis to join peace talks to end the war, and for the removal of any obstructions to the distribution of aid.
Local officials in Taiz said that without international pressure on the Houthis to end their siege of the city, the truce would remain in jeopardy.
“Opening roads in Taiz is the cornerstone and proves the credibility of the Houthis, as well as the international community,” Abdul Kareem Shaiban, head of the government’s delegation at the talks on Taiz in Amman, told Arab News.
Separately, Yemen’s official news agency said on Saturday that Prime Minister Maeen Abdul Malik Saeed is in good health after undergoing surgery in Germany, adding that he would return home soon to resume his duties.
