Yemeni President Rashad Al Alimi to meet German chancellor in Berlin

A UN-brokered truce between the warring parties is set to expire at the end of this month

Yemeni President Rashad Al Alimi arrives in Berlin. Photo: Saba

Yemen's President Rashad Al Alimi is set to meet German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin on Tuesday.

The focuses on developments in the Middle East nation and the UN-brokered truce that is set to expire at the end of this month, Yemeni state news agency Saba said.

Mr Alimi said he was “confident that his visit is set to further increase developmental interventions by German international organisations, which have already been operating in Yemen for decades”.

German-Yemen relations date back to the 1950s, when democratic West Germany had ties with the government of the Yemen Arab Republic, while Communist East Germany maintained relations with the former country of South Yemen.

Yemen and Germany were both unified after the Cold War, in 1990.

Germany has offered more than a billion dollars in development funds for Yemen over the last 40 years. A German government spokesperson said that they were scheduled to discuss "the current situation in Yemen and the efforts to resolve the conflict".

The European country is also now the largest donor to the Yemen Peace Support Facility (PSF), which was established three years ago in partnership with the UN to “aid in the implementation of initiatives” that support the peace process in the country.

Mr Alimi, who is head of the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) in Yemen, has been holding meetings with international leaders from the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the US, as well as the UN special envoy to Yemen.

The truce between Yemen's warring parties, which began in April, is set for its third renewal but attacks by the Houthis on Yemen's army, as well as hostilities with the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Al Islah party and Al Qaeda in Yemen, have threatened to restart wider military operations.

On Monday, the UN Security Council urged the warring sides to expand the truce towards a “durable ceasefire” and “intensify engagement” with UN envoy Hans Grundberg.

Yemen is in its eighth year of war since the Houthi takeover of the capital Sanaa in 2014 and subsequent intervention by the Saudi-led coalition in the country.