Local Editor

The Yemeni delegation comprising representatives of Ansarullah revolutionaries and other political factions insisted on the importance of a humanitarian pause in Yemen during the holy month of ’s Ramadan, as it said during the UN-backed talks on the Yemeni conflict in Switzerland.

During talks with the UN special envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed in Switzerland’s city of Geneva where the UN-backed talks on the Yemeni conflict are taking place, the delegation insisted that the humanitarian truce in Yemen should be during the holy month of Ramadan. 

The other negotiating side includes the Saudi-backed government.

Commenting on his meeting with the delegation of Ansarullah and other political factions, Cheick Ahmad described the dialogue as "hard", noting that the outcome of the talks in Geneva are still unclear in light of different points of view.

Earlier on Tuesday, Ansarullah accused Saudi Arabia of trying to sabotage the peace talks in Geneva, noting that the resigned Saudi-backed government was trying to impose its own agenda on the UN.

The team including Ansarullah and its allies arrived a day late in Geneva on Tuesday for the UN-backed talks after being stranded in Djibouti -- a delay they described as deliberate by Saudi Arabia.

A UN-chartered plane carrying the Yemeni team had left Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, on Sunday afternoon but was forced to wait in Djibouti for nearly 24 hours, forcing them to miss Monday’s opening of the talks and a meeting with UN chief Ban Ki-moon.

They accused Saudi Arabia of asking Egypt and Sudan to close their airspace to the chartered plane.

Saudi Arabia began its US-led military aggression on Yemen on March 26 -- without a UN mandate -- in a bid to undermine the Houthi Ansarullah movement, and to restore power to Yemen’s fugitive former President Abd Rabbuh Mansoaur Hadi, who is a close ally of Saudi Arabia.