Yemen's government delegation was due in Kuwait later Saturday for the resumption of UN-brokered peace talks after obtaining guarantees from the UN envoy, Foreign Minister Abdulmalek al-Mikhlafi said. The talks were scheduled to resume after a 15-day suspension that coincided with the Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday at the end of Ramadan.
Mikhlafi said the government had obtained a "written response to our demands sufficient for the political leadership to decide (on) sending the delegation back to Kuwait". "The deal stipulates that the Kuwait talks will not exceed two weeks, during which there will be a strict commitment to references," he wrote on Twitter. A well-defined timetable has been agreed that is limited to "withdrawal, handover of arms, return of state institutions, release of prisoners and lifting siege on cities" by the Iran-backed Huthi rebels and their allies, Mikhlafi said.
The deal was struck after two days of talks with UN special envoy to Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed in Riyadh, he said. It was also agreed that the two-week duration will not be extended and no other issues will be debated, he added. The rebel delegation of Huthis and representatives of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh's General People's Congress party arrived in Kuwait on Friday.
More than two months of negotiations between President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi's Saudi-backed government and the rebels have failed to make any headway. The government is calling for implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2216 which requires the rebels and their allies to withdraw from areas they have occupied since 2014, including the capital Sanaa, and hand over heavy weapons. Hadi on Sunday warned that his government would boycott the talks if the UN envoy insisted on a roadmap stipulating a unity government that included the insurgents.
His government wants to re-establish its authority across the entire country, much of which is rebel-controlled, and to restart a political transition interrupted when the Huthis seized Sanaa. More than 6,400 people have been killed in Yemen since a Saudi-led coalition intervened in support of Hadi's government in March last year. Another 2.8 million people have been displaced and more than 80 percent of the population urgently needs humanitarian aid, according to UN figures.