Yemen Truce, Prisoner Swap Timelines Pushed Back: UN
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The UN envoy for Yemen said Monday the expected timeline for a truce in the flashpoint city of Hudaydah and a prisoner swap between forces loyal to Yemen’s fugitive former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and the Ansarullah movement had been pushed back.
Envoy Martin Griffiths hosted hard-won peace talks between the ex-government and Houthis in Sweden last month.
The two parties agreed at the talks to a mass prisoner swap and an ambitious ceasefire pact in Hudaydah, the Red Sea city home to the impoverished country's most valuable port.
Griffiths, who arrived Monday in Sana’a on his third trip to Yemen this month, said there had been "changes in timelines" for both deals.
"That momentum is still there, even if we have seen the timelines for implementation extended, both in Hudaydah and with regard to the prisoner exchange agreement," he told Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, according to AFP.
"Yet such changes in timelines are expected, in light of the facts that the timelines were rather ambitious and we are dealing with a complex situation on the ground."
Griffiths also confirmed reports retired Dutch general Patrick Cammaert, who heads a monitoring team tasked with overseeing the Hudaydah truce, would be replaced. Cammaert arrived Saturday in Yemen.
"General Cammaert's plan was to stay in Yemen for a rather short period of time to ... lay the ground for establishing the Hudaydah mission," he said.
"All the speculations about other reasons for General Patrick's departure are not accurate."
