Local Editor
Delayed peace talks aimed at ending 13 months of conflict in Yemen resumed on Friday, a day after UN mediators finally managed to get warring sides to the table.
The United Nations hopes negotiations -- which were originally due to begin on Monday -- will put a stop to fighting across Yemen that has killed more than 6,800 people and driven 2.8 million from their homes since March last year.
The talks resumed on Friday afternoon, Charbel Raji, spokesman for UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed told AFP.
Two delegations, each of seven members, representing the government, and the Houthi ansarullah movement and their allies, joined Ould Cheikh Ahmed at the meeting, a delegate said.
The envoy appealed to both the Hadi regime and Sana’a delegations to seize the opportunity of the talks in Kuwait, saying Yemen was "closer to peace than any time before".
The Sana’a delegation -- consisting of representatives of the Houthi Ansarullah movement and allied forces loyal to ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh -- arrived in Kuwait late on Thursday after receiving assurances from the UN that a ceasefire -- in place since April 11 -- would be respected.
"War will only lead to more devastation, losses and displacement of people," he said.
Yemen has been riven by fighting since a Saudi-led coalition launched a military aggression last year against Houthi revolutionaries.
The violence has allowed Al-Qaeda and its extremist rival the ISIS terror group to make headway, overrunning swathes of southern Yemen and establishing a toehold around second city Aden -- where the Saudi-backed regime is based.
Previous UN-sponsored peace efforts failed to make any headway, and the last ceasefire in December was repeatedly violated and eventually abandoned by the Arab coalition on January 2.
- Honorable life or ruin -
But the UN envoy said the latest truce and negotiations offered a unique chance to end the violence.
"Today, you have one of two options -- a secure nation that guarantees an honorable life or the ruins of a nation," he told delegates.
The Sana’a delegation met Ould Cheikh Ahmed after the opening session, their news agency reported late Thursday, and stressed the "need to secure the ceasefire."
The delegation said the "key to reaching a solution is agreeing on a transitional authority," Sabanews.net reported.
Diplomats say the revolutionaries are demanding an end to the coalition’s air campaign and naval blockade, as well as its ground operations.
They also want UN sanctions against some of their leaders, including Saleh, to be lifted.
At the opening session Thursday, Ould Cheikh Ahmed said the UN process "will not necessarily follow a particular sequence."
"Instead, discussions will happen in parallel through working committees that will look into implementation mechanisms of each element, for the sake of reaching one comprehensive agreement that paves the way for a peaceful and orderly transition."
Source: News Agencies, Edited by Website Team
