Local Editor

The United Nations [UN] special envoy for Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, said on Thursday that he was confident that peace talks between the ousted Yemeni government and Ansarullah revolutionaries will "probably" be held in mid-November in Switzerland’s Geneva.

Cheikh Ahmed contacted in the Gulf by telephone, told AFP that his team was in contact with the Yemeni parties to discuss the modalities of the UN-brokered peace talks.

"I am very optimistic" that the talks will take place "between 10 and 15" November or "around November 15", he said.

He also said that, "We are 90 percent agreed that they will be in Geneva, but there is also a possibility of Muscat. It will probably be Geneva".

He stressed that the two sides were being positive, "both the Houthis [Ansarullah] who have shown a lot of flexibility, as well as the government side. Today there is an optimism on which I would like to capitalize".

A first attempt to hold peace talks in Geneva collapsed in June.

Since March 26, a Saudi-led coalition backed by the United States has been carrying out a military aggression on Yemen by launching airstrikes against the country in an attempt to restore power to the country’s fugitive former Yemeni president, Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Saudi Arabia.

The airstrikes have not been authorized by the United Nations UN.

The ’civilian’ death toll in Yemen has risen to more than 2,615 with more than 4,000 other civilians wounded in the fighting in the country that has raged for more than a year now, according to the UN. Yet, other organizations put the death toll at much higher.