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YEMEN-CONFLICT
Yemen government, rebels meet to hammer out major prisoner swap
AMMAN, Jan 17, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Yemeni government and rebel
representatives met in Jordan on Thursday for a second day to thrash out the
details of a major prisoner exchange, a UN source said.
The swap, which could involve up to 15,000 detainees from both sides, was
agreed in principle as a confidence-building measure ahead of peace talks in
Sweden last month.
But the details were left to afterwards as UN mediators focused on
brokering breakthrough truce deals for the aid lifeline port of Hodeida and
the battleground third city of Taez.
The talks in the Jordanian capital Amman come as international donors meet
in Berlin to set up a fund to support the fledgling peace process in Yemen.
Representatives of the United Nations, which brokered the swap agreement,
and the International Committee of the Red Cross, which will supervise its
implementation, are taking part in the Amman talks.
During a first day of talks on Wednesday, the warring parties met
separately with the mediators and submitted lists of prisoners they want to
see released.
On Thursday, they were expected to meet face-to-face to hammer out the
details of its implementation.
The new meetings come after the UN Security Council on Wednesday
unanimously approved the deployment of up to 75 monitors to oversee the truce
in Hodeida, which has largely held despite delays in the agreed withdrawal of
combatants.
– International support fund –
In Berlin, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas pledged 4.5 millions euros
as the opening contribution to the new peace process support fund.
“In Yemen, a humanitarian catastrophe threatens to unfurl if we do not
manage to bring this conflict to a definitive end,” Maas said.
“The important thing right now is to seize this small but real opportunity
and work to ensure that international support for the peace process is as
constructive and resilient as possible.”
The truce in the largely rebel-held Red Sea port city was the centrepiece
of a series of breakthrough agreements brokered by the United Nations in
Sweden last month in what is widely seen as the best chance yet of ending the
devastating four-year civil war.
But in a sign that much work still needs to be done before formal peace
negotiations can begin, UN envoy Martin Griffiths said last week that he had
postponed until February a planned second round of talks between the two
sides.
In an interview with Deutsche Welle radio on Wednesday, Griffiths said he
was guardedly optimistic.
He said he had been pleasantly surprised that the truce had held in
Hodeida so far despite the “currently very weak” UN monitoring.
He said he was “keeping his fingers crossed” that would continue while the
new observer mission is put in place.
The Yemen conflict has killed some 10,000 people since a Saudi-led military
coalition intervened in support of the beleaguered government in March 2015,
according to the World Health Organization.
Human rights groups say the real death toll could be five times as high.
The war has pushed 14 million Yemenis to the brink of famine in what the
United Nations describes as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
BSS/AFP/RY/1815 hrs