No time to waste for Yemen peace talks — United Nations envoy

The Saudi-led coalition has gained ground in southern Yemen, and Hadi’s government officially returned to Aden after southern fighters and coalition forces drove the Houthis out in July.

Security officials in the city said on Saturday that mediated talks with al-Qaida to persuade its fighters to surrender their weapons or move out of Aden had failed.

“I will start working immediately with the government of Yemen, the Houthis and other stakeholders to agree on the agenda, date and format for these talks”, he said. That appears to be par for the course for the war, which has been dragging on for months despite predictions of a quick win.

In March, Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies began an extensive air campaign aimed at reversing Houthi gains and restoring Hadi’s government, most members of which had fled to Riyadh.

He added that the negotiations would be held on the basis of a framework stipulated by the Security Council in a resolution adopted in April, calling for the withdrawal of Houthis from territory and government institutions they had seized.

But the envoy – Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed – painted a grim picture of the disastrous humanitarian consequences of the crisis.

The members of the Security Council also reaffirmed their call on Yemeni parties to attend the announced talks and any such future talks and engage without preconditions and in good faith, including by resolving their differences through dialogue and consultations, rejecting acts of violence to achieve political goals, and refraining from provocation and all unilateral actions to undermine the political transition.

Taiz, considered Yemen’s third largest city and cultural capital, has suffered huge destruction since becoming a main battleground in the country’s war. The United Nations says over 21 million people – 80 percent of the population – need humanitarian assistance.

This followed the Houthis’ occupation of Sana’a in September of 2014 when the group, aided by Saleh loyalists in the army and security forces, took over government, media, and military buildings and facilities in the city, then spreading to other areas of the country.

In the second half of August, Houthi shelling and sniper attacks on civilian neighbourhoods in Taiz killed at least 42 civilians, according to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, WAM reported.