Berlin: Yemeni Foreign Minister Abdul Malek Al Mekhlafi on Wednesday urged the international community to step up its support for his government in its fight against the Al Houthi rebels, and to help combat arms smuggling from Iran and elsewhere.
“We are grateful for the international support for Yemen and the legitimate government, but we need more, of course,” Al Mekhlafi said addressing the German Council on Foreign Relations. “Above all, we need more pressure on the militias so that they take part in the peace process.”
UN-sponsored talks to try to end 18 months of fighting collapsed last month and the Al Houthis and their allies in the form of forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh resumed shelling across the border into Saudi Arabia.
It may be recalled that a Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen in March last year with the aim of preventing the Al Houthis and Saleh supporters from overrunning the country.
Speaking in Berlin, Al Mekhlafi reiterated that his government was ready to consider solutions and form a government with the Iranian-allied Al Houthi movement if they would accept a UN proposal.
Last month, US Secretary of State John Kerry said that he had agreed in talks in Saudi Arabia with Gulf Arab states and the United Nations on a plan to restart peace talks with the goal of forming a unity government.
Both the Al Houthis and the government of President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi have welcomed the idea of a return to talks since then.
The United Nations last week said that at least 10,000 people have been killed in the civil war. It said some 14 million of Yemen’s 26 million population needed food aid and 7 million were suffering from food insecurity.
Al Mekhlafi said a national commission was studying all the deaths to determine responsibility, and rejected a call to launch an independent commission until that work was completed.
He said the government was willing to take responsibility for any mistakes that had led to civilian deaths and said most of the deaths were due to Al Houthi bombing.
Last week, the leader of the Al Houthis, Abdul Malek Al Houthi, indicated in a quarterly magazine published by the group that the militia was open to a peaceful solution to the conflict.
Meanwhile, UAE news agency WAM reported on Thursday that Abdul Latif Rashid Al Zayani, the GCC Secretary-General, and Esmail Ould Shaikh Ahmad, the UN Special Envoy for Yemen, had reviewed developments in Yemen besides means of promoting UN and the international community’s efforts to push the political process forward in line with the Gulf initiative, besides elements of the National Dialogue and UN Security Council Resolution No 2216.
During the meeting, the UN envoy briefed Al Zayani on his recent talks with the aim of resuming political consultations and reaching a political solution that ends the conflict in Yemen according to the accredited international references.
Al Zayani commended the UN envoy’s efforts and stressed the GCC states’s support for his work in order to resume peace talks in Yemen.
