Riyadh: US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Thursday he had agreed in talks with Gulf Arab states and the United Nations in Saudi Arabia on a plan to restart peace talks Yemen with a goal of forming a unity government.
Speaking at a press conference with his Saudi counterpart Adel Al Jubeir in the Saudi city of Jeddah, Kerry said the 18 month conflict in which the kingdom has launched thousands of air strikes in favour of the internationally-recognised government had gone on too long and needed to end.
Kerry said Yemen’s Iran-backed Al Houthi militant group must cease its shelling across the border with Saudi Arabia, cede its weapons and enter into a unity government with its domestic foes.
“We agreed on a renewed approach to negotiations with both a security and political track simultaneously working in order to provide a comprehensive settlement,” Kerry said.
“The final agreement ... would include in the first phase a swift formation of a new national unity government, the withdrawal of forces from (the capital) Sana’a and other areas and the transfer of all heavy weapons including ballistic missiles, from Al Houthis and forces aligned to them to a third party.”
Kerry said stability in Yemen is important to blunting the expansion of extremist groups there like Daesh and Al Qaida.
Kerry wrote on Twitter that he discussed with King Salman the “need to reach a political solution (and) address the humanitarian crisis in Yemen,” as well as the war in Syria and the fight against Daesh.
Kerry also met on Thursday with UN special envoy for Yemen Esmail Ould Shaikh Ahmad, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al Jubeir, British Under Secretary at the Foreign Office Tobias Ellwood, and the United Arab Emirates’ Foreign Minister Shaikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
