44 killed in Yemen ahead of UN-brokered peace talks

A Saudi-led Arab coalition intervened in March to try to restore the government after it was toppled by Houthi forces.

“Based on what had been agreed upon, there will be a halt of the aggression on the fourteenth of this month and it will be confirmed within twenty-four hours then we will enter for positive and serious dialogue”.

“A longer-lasting ceasefire, the removal of the Saudi-led blockade on Yemeni ports and even a rough framework to keep the talks going is about as much as can be hoped for right now”.

Unstable ever since a 2011 revolt toppled veteran president Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen finally plunged into civil war a year ago when the ex-leader joined forces with the Houthis to seize power, triggering a Gulf Arab military intervention.

Yemeni troops loyal to their Saudi-backed President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi march during a military parade west of the city of Marib, some 170 kilometers (105 miles) east of the capital Sanaa on December 12, 2015.

The Houthis and Saleh’s former political party, the General People’s Congress, are sending representatives to Switzerland on Tuesday for talks with Yemen’s internationally recognised government under President Hadi.

The warring sides have agreed to sit at the same table despite mutual mistrust, mainly over UN Security Council Resolution 2216 which calls for rebels to withdraw from key cities and surrender their weapons. Damage to Yemen’s economic infrastructure has also been extensive.

The resolution is a mainstay of the position of the government and its Gulf backers.

“We have agreed to the cease-fire to lift the suffering of our people and to deliver humanitarian assistance to them”, Mohammed Abdel Salam, the spokesman of the Shiite rebels known as Houthis, said Saturday at a news conference in San’a as the Houthi delegation prepared to depart for Geneva. The resolution was approved after the Saudi Arabia-led coalition had launched multiple airstrikes against the Houthi rebels and was supported by Hadi’s government and its troops. Incidentally, peace talks held in June had failed to reach any conclusion because both the parties started hurling accusations for not offering any acceptable compromises that would end the conflict.