More than three months of peace talks to end the war in Yemen came to a halt on Saturday, leaving in doubt the future of a shaky ceasefire and threatening to deepen what has become one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
The UN special envoy on Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed announced the suspension on Saturday in Kuwait, where the talks were being held.
He said that the negotiations were not a failure and that they would resume in a month at an undisclosed location.
A Western diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity as a matter of official policy, told reporters on Friday that he was disappointed by the end of the talks and expressed concerns about Yemen’s stability.
Ahmed convened the talks after a ceasefire was declared in April between the military coalition, which is led by Saudi Arabia and backed by the US, and the Houthi rebels, who the Saudis say are supported by Iran.
He said the talks were being suspended in an effort to find a lasting solution.
“We seek a sustainable solution to the conflict,” Ahmed said. “We do not want a fragile solution.”
More than 6,500 people have been killed in the 15-month-long war, and UN Children’s Emergency Fund said last week that 370,000 children were at risk of starving to death.
More than half of Yemenis do not have enough food, aid workers said.
While the ceasefire has been marred by regular violations on both sides, it has partly tamped down the fighting in recent months.
“The situation for Yemenis keeps deteriorating and it is now untenable,” said the Norwegian Refugee Council’s country director in Yemen, Syma Jamil. “Yemenis won’t be able to cope for much longer.”
Jamil said that the end of the talks would lead to a large-scale resumption of bombing and ground fighting, putting Yemeni civilians even more at risk.
In the past week, she said, 40 airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition had been reported in Houthi strongholds in northern Yemen and fighting had intensified in the city of Taiz.
“It was a fragile peace process to begin with,” Jamil said. “World leaders must call on all parties to restrain from escalation.”
Underlining the lack of confidence in the peace process, the Houthis and former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh, a Houthi ally, on Saturday announced the formation of a supreme political council to govern the country. That arrangement excluded Yemeni President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s government, who was forced into exile when Houthi forces captured the capital, Sana’a, last year.
However, Hadi, whose government is backed by the UN, later returned to the southern city of Aden after Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened militarily.
Ahmed is the second UN envoy to try to broker peace talks between the Houthis and other factions in Yemen since full-scale war erupted in March last year. His predecessor quit after similar peace talk efforts failed.
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