Yemen urges UN envoy to pitch new peace deal

The internationally-recognised government of Yemen has called upon the UN envoy to Yemen to propose a new peace deal that respects the UN Security Council resolution 2216, the National Dialogue Conference and the GCC peace initiative.

Yemen foreign minister, Abdul Malek Al Mikhlafi, told Esmail Ould Shaikh Ahmad on Saturday that his government is looking forward to seeing another peace plan that does not violate the three references of peace talks.

President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi and his government strongly opposed an earlier UN peace proposal that made it binding on Hadi and his vice-president to cede their powers to a new vice-president and for Hadi to take a figurehead role until a new president was elected.

Senior government officials close to Hadi told Gulf News that envoys of some of the 18 countries sponsoring peace talks in Yemen had stepped up pressure on Hadi and his government to change their minds about the plan. Hadi’s government wants to see Al Houthis disarm and pull out of cities under their control before striking any political deals.

Meanwhile, the governor of the northern province of Saada, the Al Houthis heartland, said on Saturday that government forces were engaged in heavy clashes with the rebels as they advanced closer towards the provincial capital. Hadi Tarshan said on Twitter that his forces were battling Al Houthis in Mandaba region of Bagum district after expelling the rebels from near two border crossings with Saudi Arabia. Fighting in Saada flared up in October when the government forces backed by heavy air support from the Saudi-led coalition, marched into the province from the Saudi side of the border.

Local authorities on the remote island of Socotra said on Saturday that local fishermen and international navies engaged in anti-piracy patrolling had found no clues about the 29 Yemenis reported missing since the small boats they had boarded capsized early this month along with the cargo they were transporting. The governor of Socotra, Abdullah Salem, told Gulf News that Yemenia, Yemen’s national airline, had resumed flights to the island to transport stranded people ever since the government clamped down on unsafe wooden or fibreglass vessels operating from Hadramout to the island.

“We want Yemenia to arrange regular flights to the island or similar tragedies could happen in future,” Salem said. Local officials are given to believe that the missing people might have been rescued by international commercial ships, citing similar incidents involving missing islanders who had been traced to India

source : gulfnews