Jeddah: US Secretary of State John Kerry yesterday announced a fresh international peace initiative for Yemen aimed at forming a unity government to resolve the 17-month-old conflict.
“This war needs to end as quickly as possible,” Kerry told reporters after a meeting with Gulf counterparts, British Minister of State for the Middle East and North Africa, Tobias Ellwood, and United Nations Secretary-General’s envoy to Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, in Jeddah.
Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani attended the meeting.
Kerry lashed out at Iran and said its arms shipments to the Shia Houthi rebels in Yemen posed a threat to the US. “The threat potentially posed by the shipments of missiles and other sophisticated weapons into Yemen from Iran extends well beyond Yemen and is not a threat just to Saudi Arabia and... the region. It is a threat to the US and it cannot continue.”
The new peace approach will have “a security and political track simultaneously working to provide a comprehensive settlement,” he said, adding Gulf states had “agreed unanimously on the initiative” after three months of talks in Kuwait ended earlier this month without making headway..
He said details would be finalised by the “parties themselves” but the final deal would initially include a swift formation of a national unity government with power shared among the parties; withdrawal of forces from Sana’a and other key areas; and transfer of heavy weapons, including ballistic missiles and launchers, from the Houthis and forces allied with them to a third party.
AFP
