Doha // Yemen’s foreign minister is confident that UN-brokered peace talks would take place in Kuwait by the end of this month.
Asked on Tuesday if the discussions would happen before April, Abdulmalek Al Mikhlafi said that he was “99 per cent” sure that the talks would go ahead.
Mr Al Mikhlafi’s confirmation came as he attended the Al Jazeera forum in the Qatari capital.
“We are going to go to these peace talks and we will say we are ready to go anywhere and we are hopeful that we are going to reach a solution,” he had said at the conference on Monday.
Mr Al Mekhlafi added that his government “never chose war” and praised the Saudi-led coalition – of which Qatar is a member – which launched a military campaign in support of the Yemeni government nearly a year ago.
Yemen has been gripped by violence since September 2014, when the Iran-backed Houthi rebels stormed Sanaa and forced the internationally recognised government to flee south.
On Sunday, UN special envoy for Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed wrote on his Facebook page that he held “positive and constructive talks” in rebel-held Sanaa with the Houthis and their allies – supporters of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
“Preparations are ongoing for the next round of peace talks on Yemen,” he wrote, without giving a specific date or location.
A resumption of talks must be accompanied by a “week-long truce that could be renewed if respected”, he said, adding that discussions should focus on the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2216.
The resolution states that the rebels must withdraw from seized territories and disarm, before peace talks can progress.
Last Wednesday, coalition spokesman Brig Gen Ahmed Al Assiri said that the alliance was at “the end of the major combat phase”, raising hopes of a possible relaunch of peace talks.
Kuwait is a member of the nine-nation coalition.
Previous UN-sponsored negotiations between rebels and government officials failed to reach a breakthrough, and the most recent round ended in acrimony in December.
The World Health Organisation says fighting in Yemen has killed almost 6,300 people over the past year and the United Nations has warned of an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe.
* Agence France-Presse
