Martin griffiths un special envoy

News / World by Press Association 08/09/2018, 10:46 am Updated: 08/09/2018, 1:14 pm FacebookTwitterWhatsAppEmail Send us a story Sign up to our Daily newsletter The UN special envoy to Yemen has downplayed the significance of the failure of peace talks to start, saying he would head back to Yemen “within days” to try to agree on a new date. A delegation of the internationally recognised government arrived in Geneva for the talks, which were supposed to start on Thursday, but their war rivals — Iranian-backed rebels known as the Houthis — did not, arguing they could not go because they did not have guarantees for their safe return. Addressing a news conference in Geneva, Martin Griffiths declined to blame either side for the failure to start the talks, saying apportioning blame would not help Yemen. He insisted that the “consultation” — the term used by the UN to refer to the talks — had begun when he and his team … [Read more...] about UN envoy to Yemen downplays non-start of peace talks

CAIRO (Reuters) - The U.N. special envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths, told Al Jazeera late on Thursday that he looked forward to "announcing the reopening of Sanaa airport next week". Al Jazeera reported that Griffiths added he is "working on resuming Yemen talks within weeks in Europe, but not in Geneva ... Houthis should be given a new opportunity to enable them to come for consultations". U.N.-brokered talks to end Yemen's three-year war were meant to begin on Sept. 6, but only representatives of the Yemeni government of Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi turned up as the Houthis insisted their plane to Geneva be allowed to evacuate dozens of injured people to neighbouring Oman. (Reporting by Ali Abdelaty; Editing by Sandra Maler) … [Read more...] about U.N. envoy to announce reopening of Sanaa airport next week

DUBAI (Reuters) - The United Nations Special Envoy for Yemen is deeply concerned about recent hostilities in the country and is urging all sides to reduce tensions, his office said on its Twitter account on Thursday. Yemen's Houthis have agreed with the Saudi-backed government to implement a ceasefire in Hodeidah province and withdraw their respective forces as part of a U.N.-sponsored peace agreement signed in Sweden in December. "What we need now is speedy redeployments according to an RCC plan," the office of Martin Griffiths said, referring to a Redeployment Coordination Committee (RCC) as part of the peace agreement. (Reporting by Sylvia Westall; Editing by Hugh Lawson) … [Read more...] about U.N. envoy says deeply concerned about Yemen hostilities

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Saudi-led forces fought to retake the international airport of Yemen’s rebel-held port city of Hodeida from the Shiite Houthi rebels, Yemeni officials and witnesses said on Saturday, as combat intensified for the starving nation’s main gateway for food shipments. With battles raging at the southern side of al-Hodeida International Airport, the military of Yemen’s exiled government said it had entirely seized the facility, and that engineers were working to clear mines from nearby areas just south of the city of some 600,000 people on the Red Sea.“The armed forces which are supported by the Arab coalition have freed the al-Hodeida International Airport from the Houthi militias and the engineering teams have started to clean the airport and its surroundings from mines and bombs,” the military said on its official Twitter account. Other government officials and witnesses later said coalition forces had not yet fully taken control of … [Read more...] about Fighting Rages Around Airport in Yemen Port City of Hodeida

This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com Saudi coalition claims to have captured airport in Yemen’s Hodeidah United Nations renews its peace plan proposal Saudi coalition claims to have captured airport in Yemen’s Hodeidah The news agencies of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are reporting that troops from the Saudi-led military coalition have taken control of a large part of the airport in Yemen’s port city of Hodeidah on Tuesday, recapturing it from Iran-backed Houthi rebels that have controlled the port since 2015. This comes a week after the coalition began large-scale ground operations against the port city, supported by air and naval forces, as we described in “15-Jun-18 World View — Saudi Arabia and UAE launch a ‘catastrophic’ assault on Port Hodeidah in Yemen.” However, the road that leads from the airport to Hodeidah’s city center is heavily populated, and there is still heavy ground fighting going … [Read more...] about World View: Saudi Coalition Claims to Have Captured Airport in Yemen’s Hodeidah