SANAA
A presidential mediation committee said Sunday that it hammered out a ceasefire to raging confrontations between the Yemeni army and the Shia Houthi movement in the northern Amran province.
"The ceasefire was signed upon the desire of parties to the conflict and under sponsorship from the president," the official Yemeni news agency quoted a statement by the mediation committee as saying.
This is the second ceasefire to be signed between Houthis and the Yemeni army during this month.
The two sides agreed to stop their animosities earlier in June, but this proved to be very short-lived as they returned to lock horns yet again only a few days later.
The military encounter between the Yemeni army and Houthis sometimes seeps out of the borders of Amran and into administrative areas within the capital Sanaa.
The new ceasefire, the news agency said, makes it necessary for both sides to suspend hostilities in all sites in Amran and its vicinity.
It also makes it necessary for the Yemeni army to change its leadership in the province.
The news agency added that the ceasefire would be enforced by a neutral committee, but it did not mention who exactly the members of this committee would be.
Amran has been the scene of sporadic clashes in recent weeks between the army and Houthi militants.
The Shia Houthi movement first appeared in 1992, taking Yemen's northern Saada province as its main base of operations.
Several rounds of subsequent fighting between the group and the army have left thousands dead on both sides.
Yemen in general has been dogged by turmoil since pro-democracy protests in 2011 forced autocratic president Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down after 33 years in power.
By Maarib al-Ward
www.aa.com.tr/en
