Local Editor
UN special envoy Martin Griffiths left Yemen's Sana’a on Saturday, after a week-long visit where he met with chief of dominant Houthi revolutionaries group to negotiate resumption of stalled peace talks.
"All the people I met, both in Riyadh and Sana’a, spoke about their strong desire to move ahead with a political solution," Griffiths said in a statement he distributed to reporters in Sana’a airport upon he left.
He said he will work harder to find ways to help resume peace talks between the Yemeni warring parties and give hope to all Yemeni families.
Houthi leader Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, leader of the revolutionary committees, was quoted by his group media that the group's chief Abdul-Malik al-Houthi met with UN envoy Griffiths through a telephone network due to security reasons.
Griffiths' visit aimed at bringing the Houthis to the negotiating table after the peace process between the battling forces has stalled since August 2016.
Earlier this month, Griffiths met with Yemeni President Abdu-Rabbu Mansour Hadi in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, where they discussed ways to resume the UN-brokered peace negotiations between the resigned Hadi regime and the Houthi revolutionaries.
Griffiths succeeded recently the UN Special Envoy for Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed in February.
Three previous peace talks sponsored by the United Nations and hosted in Kuwait and Switzerland in 2016 had failed to end the war.
Saudi Arabia has been leading an Arab military coalition since March 2015 to support the regime of former President Hadi.
The war has killed more than 10,000 Yemenis, half of them civilians, displaced over 3 million others, and created the largest humanitarian crisis in the world, according to UN humanitarian agencies.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by Website Team
