Jeddah: US Secretary of State John Kerry yesterday announced a fresh global peace initiative for Yemen aimed at forming a unity government to resolve the 17-month-old conflict.
Advertisement
Fighting escalated in March 2015 with the start of Saudi-led airstrikes targeting the Houthis and their allies who are loyal to Yemen’s ousted president.
The night before, Kerry met for three hours with Crown Prince and Interior Minister Mohammed bin Nayef and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is also Saudi Arabia’s defense minister.
“This war needs to end and it needs to end as quickly as possible”, Mr Kerry said in Jeddah after a meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed, and other GCC foreign ministers, along with Britain’s Middle East minister and the United Nations peace envoy to Yemen.
Tensions in Yemen escalated after Shia President Ali Abdullah Saleh was deposed in 2012 and his Houthi supporters – reportedly aided by Iran – eventually seized the capital city of Sanaa in 2014. That was echoed by Teresa Sancristoval of Doctors Without Borders, who says four of her organization’s medical clinics and one ambulance have been hit in Yemen in the past year and a half.
The most recent of these attacks, in Hajjah province, killed 19 and left 24 wounded.
The US has backed the Saudi campaign in Yemen.
Houthi supporters and activists posted photographs on social media showing lifeless bodies of children and charred remains in the aftermath on the attack.
“The objective of our meetings was, quite simply, to see if together we could find a way to end the violence of Yemen, to end the war, and to address the deeply troubling situation there”, Mr Kerry told reporters before leaving Jiddah.
Mr Kerry said details of the new peace initiative would be finalised by the “parties themselves”. Instead, he called on the Houthis to stop shelling Saudi Arabia, pull back from Sanaa and transfer their weapons to a third party in exchange for their inclusion in a unity government.
The United States has mobilized a robust humanitarian response to the crisis in Yemen despite the complex and insecure operating environment.
Kerry announced another 189 million dollars allocated for the Yemeni population, highlighting that the United States is already the leading donor country.
The U.N. human rights chief on Thursday called for an worldwide investigation of rights abuses and violence in Yemen’s civil war which has killed thousands of people, insisting that a domestic panel set up to look into violations has not been up to the task.
Advertisement
KELEMEN: He’s calling for an independent, worldwide investigation. An estimated 3,800 civilians have been killed since the Saudi-led airstrikes began. In addition, this new funding will provide critical protection, shelter, and other assistance for Yemeni refugees in the Horn of Africa.
