Mohamed Sabry Emam Muhammed
06 August 2016•Update: 07 August 2016
By Zakaria al-Kamali
KUWAIT
UN envoy to Yemen Islami Ould Cheikh Ahmed on Saturday announced a one-month suspension in peace talks between the Yemeni government and the Shia group for resolving the conflict in the Arab country.
Speaking at a press conference in Kuwait, Ould Cheikh said the talks will be resumed within one month at a venue to be determined later.
Earlier today, Yemeni Foreign Minister Abdulmalik al-Mekhlafi said that the UN-brokered talks with the Houthis ended without reaching a peace deal.
The move came shortly after the Houthi group and allied former president Ali Abdullah Saleh named ten officials who would comprise a council to run the war-torn country.
Yemen has been racked by chaos since late 2014, when the Houthis and their allies overran capital Sanaa and other parts of the country, forcing President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi and his Saudi-backed government to temporarily flee to Riyadh.
In March of last year, Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies launched a massive military campaign in Yemen aimed at reversing Houthi gains and restoring Hadi’s embattled government.
Backed by Saudi-led airstrikes, pro-Hadi forces have since managed to reclaim large swathes of the country’s south -- including provisional capital Aden -- but have failed to retake Sanaa and other strategic areas.
In April, the Yemeni government and the Houthis entered into UN-sponsored peace talks aimed at resolving the conflict, which has so far killed more than 6,400 people and forced 2.5 million others to flee their homes.
