End of Talks: UN Envoy Optimistic about Yemen Truce
Local Editor
Yemeni sides Sunday wrapped up peace talks in Switzerland with no major breakthrough but vowed to meet again next month, even as fighting raged on the ground.
The six days of closed-door meetings were strained by repeated violations of a cease-fire aimed at calming tensions.
UN special envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed announced in Bern that a new round of talks would be held on Jan. 14 at a location yet to be decided.
The head of the government negotiating team, Foreign Minister Abdel Malak al-Mekhlafi, said the much-violated cease-fire, which began Tuesday, would be extended for seven days after it officially expires Monday.
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The truce will be extended for seven more days and will then be automatically extended if it is respected by the other party," he told reporters, referring to the Houthis.
Mekhlafi said the decision to extend the truce has been communicated to the United Nations.
The talks in Switzerland, held in a remote part of Bern canton to keep media at bay, ended without any major steps forward, and were undermined by daily breaches of the cease-fire.
"Unfortunately there were numerous violations," Ould Cheikh Ahmed told a news conference, adding that the UN had called for "a cease-fire which is not time-bound."
The parties had meanwhile agreed to a range of "confidence-building measures," he said.
These included an agreement "in principle" to release all prisoners, he said, while acknowledging that such an exchange would probably not happen before a sustainable ceasefire had been agreed.
"Though we are still far from a fully respected ceasefire but I am optimistic we will achieve a ceasefire in coming days," he added.
But, he stressed, "I am optimistic about a full prisoner release and that a full prisoner release will take place very soon."
The two sides had also agreed on the need to "lift all forms of blockade and allow safe, rapid and unhindered access for humanitarian supplies to all affected governorates," according to the final statement.
