Riyadh: Violations of a UN-brokered ceasefire in Yemen are decreasing as monitors spread out around the war-ravaged country, the Saudi-led coalition said on Friday as peace talks resumed in Kuwait.
The joint committees of rebel and loyalist army representatives are in the field and “are mostly operating”, supervised by Saudi members of the coalition, Brigadier General Ahmad Assiri said.
“Our observations tell us that day by day the number of violations keeps decreasing,” he said.
The ceasefire began on April 11 to pave the way for the talks aimed at ending 13 months of fighting between Iran-backed Huthi rebels, their allies loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh and government forces backed by air strikes and other support from the Saudi-led Arab alliance.
Peace negotiations had been due to start last Monday, but rebel delegates stayed away in protest at alleged Saudi violations of the truce.
They arrived in Kuwait late on Thursday to begin the talks following UN assurances that the ceasefire would be respected.
The truce has dramatically reduced violence but fighting continues on several fronts as each side blames the other for truce breaches.
Clashes continued overnight Thursday on the outskirts of the southwestern city of Taez and in the northern Jawf province, military sources said.
“Taez is a very difficult city, but I think today is better than yesterday or two days before,” Assiri said, adding that the largest monitoring team is there.
