Local Editor
Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement said on Monday it was halting drone and missile attacks on Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and their Yemeni allies, responding to a demand from the United Nations.
"After our contacts with the UN envoy and his request to stop drone and missile strikes ... We announce our initiative ... to halt missile and drone strikes on the countries of aggression," Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, the head of the Houthis' Supreme Revolutionary Committee (SRC), said in a statement.
The group said it was ready for a broader ceasefire if "the Saudi-led coalition wants peace."
“[The decision] came to support the UN envoy, to show good faith and support the peace efforts," the statement said.
Griffiths is trying to reconvene conflict resolution talks in Sweden.
Those involved in the conflict have given "firm assurances" that they were committed to attending the talks “to be convened shortly,” he was quoted by the agency as telling the UN Security Council on Friday.
Yemen has been in turmoil since 2015 when former president Abd Rabbu Mansur Hadi stepped down and fled to Riyadh.
The Houthis took over state affairs to fill the void. The Saudi-led coalition, however, invaded the country to bring back the former Riyadh-allied officials.
Thousands have been killed in the invasion which has also pushed Yemen to the edge of famine.
The two sides began holding several rounds of UN-sponsored talks in Switzerland after the war began, without hammering out anything beyond prisoner exchange deals.
Then they gathered Kuwait in 2016 with hopes of striking a “power-sharing” deal, but the Saudi-backed side left the venue in protest at the Houthis’ demands.
Last time, Griffith invited the two sides to pick up where they had left in Geneva. The Saudis, however, refused to give permission to an Omani plane” to land in the Yemeni capital Sana’a to take the Houthi delegation to the negotiations.
This time, Griffith has pledged to escort the Houthi delegation from Sana’a if necessary.
Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating military campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the aim of bringing the regime of former president Abd Rabbu Mansur Hadi back to power and crushing the country’s Houthi Ansarullah movement.
Some 16,000 Yemenis have been killed and thousands more injured since the onset of the Saudi-led aggression.
More than 2,200 others have died of cholera, and the crisis has triggered what the United Nations has described as the world's worst humanitarian disaster.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by Website Team
