Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis say no to peace

Yemen’s Houthi militias, slamming US President Joe Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia, said they would not agree to extend a truce in the seven-year war.

After Biden met with officials in his trip there this week, the White House in a statement said that Saudi Arabia had committed to extending and strengthening a UN-mediated truce in Yemen and will engage in talks to end the war that’s roiled the Arabian Gulf and triggered a humanitarian crisis.

All sides in the seven-year-old war agreed to a two-month truce in April, renewing the arrangement for a further two months in June. The White House statement suggested the fragile cease-fire will once again be extended.

The internationally recognized government in Yemen has reiterated its determination to achieve enduring peace in Yemen and strengthen the UN-brokered truce, calling upon the international community to demand that the Houthis implement the truce and end their siege on the city of Taiz.

The government issued a statement to that effect after a meeting between Chairman of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council Rashad Al-Alimi, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and US Special Envoy for Yemen Tim Lenderking in Jeddah on Saturday.

Al-Alimi told the American officials that the world, particularly the US, should put more pressure on the Iran-backed Houthis to fully honor the truce, and to open roads in Taiz. He stressed that his government was committed to a true, “just and comprehensive” peace based on United Nations’ resolutions

Also on Saturday, the Yemeni government welcomed a joint statement from Saudi Arabia and the US issued after US President Joe Biden’s meeting with Saudi officials in Jeddah that supported strengthening and extending the truce and turning it into a lasting peace deal to end the war in Yemen.

Under the two-month truce brokered by the UN, which came into effect on April 2 and was renewed for a further two months in June, the Yemeni government ceased hostilities, facilitated the departure of commercial flights from Sanaa airport, allowed passengers with Houthi-issued passports to leave the country, eased restrictions on Hodeidah port, and agreed to a UN proposal on opening roads in Taiz.