The UN envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, today presented to the Security Council a new plan to resume peace negotiations in the country, while continuing to avoid a major battle in the city of Al Hudeida.
Griffiths moved his proposal to the Council via video conference at a closed-door meeting, the third that he held on the situation in Yemen in the past week.
The fifteen Member States, in a brief statement, gave their support to the diplomat, although they avoided commenting on the content of the initiative.
“The situation is now very volatile, I prefer not to go into detail at the moment,” Deputy Ambassador Dmitri Polyanskiy, whose country presides over the Security Council this month, told reporters.
The spokesman of the United Nations, Stéphane Dujarric, said that Griffiths has discussed the initiative for months with his interlocutors and hopes that it will allow him to return to the negotiating table.
The UN has repeatedly tried, so far without success, to reach an agreement between the Yemeni government and the Houthi rebels to end the conflict.
In recent days, the organization has focused its efforts on avoiding a large-scale confrontation in the port of Al Hudeida, under Houthi control and the object of an offensive by government forces and the Arab coalition that supports them.
Griffiths, according to the UN, continues the discussions while the fighting has already reached the south of the city.
The Security Council, said Polyanskiy, remains very concerned and supports these efforts of the diplomat.
In addition, the fifteen countries reiterated their call for the ports of Al Hudeida and Al Salif to remain open, given the risk that their closure would pose for the humanitarian situation in Yemen, which is already experiencing the worst crisis in the world.
