A spokesman for the Saudi-led Arab coalition that has been fighting to restore Yemen’s President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to power since a year ago could not immediately be reached for comment on the reported talks.
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A boy gets his hand print on a Yemeni flag during a gathering by held Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, against Saudi-led airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, Wednesday, March 9, 2016.
In a statement cited by the Saudi news agency, the coalition said Yemeni tribal figures have sought to create a state of calm along the Saudi-Yemeni border to allow medical and aid material into Yemeni villages.
The prisoner exchange came a day after Yemeni officials said a Houthi delegation had visited Saudi Arabia.
The agency gave no further details, but some Yemeni media have reported that the exchange happened on the border between the two countries earlier this week.
Although the Houthis’ al-Masirah news channel has continued to report attacks on what it calls “the Saudi-American forces of aggression” inside Yemen, including a rocket attack on Monday, it has not reported any operations on the border since March 1.
The SPA says Yemeni tribal leaders coordinated the swap that led to the release of Cpl.
“A detained Saudi lieutenant was recovered in return for seven Yemenis captured in operation areas near the Saudi border”, the statement said.
The United Nations has been pursuing efforts for peace but the UN’s envoy for Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, said last month that “deep divisions” were preventing any progress.
Saudi Arabia’s government has asked banks to submit proposals to extend it a five-year, USA dollar loan of between $6 billion and $8 billion, with an option to increase the size, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.
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On Tuesday, Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri, deputy chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, suggested that Tehran could send military advisers to help the Houthis in Yemen just as it has done in Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad’s forces. “We do not want to talk about individuals”. “Anything else is operational and not political”, Mekhlafi said after the meeting with his Gulf Arab counterparts in Riyadh.
