US calls for end of Yemen conflict, Sweden willing to provide a venue for talks

The United States has called for the cessation of hostilities in Yemen and said UN-led consultations are to start in November, while Sweden said it was willing to provide a venue for talks.

"We have received a query from the UN whether we could be a location where the UN envoy hopefully could assemble the parties," Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom said Wednesday.

Wallstrom was speaking the day after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called for missile and drone strikes from Houthi-controlled areas into Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to stop.

Pompeo added that, "subsequently," Saudi-led Coalition air strikes "must cease in all populated areas in Yemen."

Yemen, one of the Arab world's poorest countries, has been embroiled in a devastating power struggle between the Saudi-backed government and the Iran-backed Houthi rebels for almost four years.

Earlier this month, the UN's relief chief warned that Yemen is in danger of being engulfed by an "imminent and great big famine" that could affect 14 million people, or around half of the population.

The secretary of state called for "substantive consultations" under the UN Special Envoy in a third country in November to "address the underlying issues of the conflict, the demilitarization of borders, and the concentration of all large weapons under international observation," he said in a statement.

Wallstrom did not want to comment on a date, saying the process was intended to commence after the cessation of hostilities.

Sweden, a current member of the UN Security Council, has also called for an end to the fighting in Yemen.

In September, an attempt to organize UN-sponsored talks in Geneva between Yemen's Saudi-backed government and the Houthi rebels collapsed.

"We must remember this is the largest humanitarian crisis we have in the world and we have - both in the EU and UN - continuously supported Martin Griffiths, who is the UN envoy, and it's good to try to make an effort to organize political talks," Wallstrom said.

She was interviewed by Swedish Radio during a visit to Oslo, Norway.

The Swedish Foreign Ministry had no further comment.