Yemen Peace Roadmap Expected in Two Months

TEHRAN (IQNA) – UN envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths said he will present a plan to the UN Security Council for resumption of peace talks between the warring parties in Yemen.

"My plan is to put to the council within the next two months a framework for negotiations," Griffiths said on Tuesday at his first meeting at the Security Council since he assumed the position in March.

The UN envoy noted that a political solution to the conflict in Yemen is available, adding that both Houthi Ansarullah movement and the faction of former Yemeni president Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi have expressed “constructive attitudes” and their desire for peace talks. 

 “A negotiated political settlement through inclusive intra-Yemeni dialogue is the only way to end the Yemeni conflict and address the ongoing humanitarian crisis,” he added, according to Press TV.

Griffiths, however, warned that intensified fighting between the warring sides in Yemen could "in a stroke, take peace off the table." 

Years of UN mediatory efforts by the UN and other international players have failed to bring a peaceful resolution to the ongoing conflict in Yemen. Meanwhile, a Saudi-led military intervention in the impoverished country has brought the country to the brink of a catastrophic humanitarian crisis. 

The Saudi aggression was launched in March 2015 in support of Yemen’s former Riyadh-friendly government of president Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi and against the country’s Houthi Ansarullah movement, which has been running state affairs in the absence of an effective administration. 

The offensive has, however, achieved neither of its goals despite the spending of billions of petrodollars and the enlisting of Saudi Arabia's regional and Western allies. 

The Yemeni Ministry of Human Rights announced in a statement on March 25 that the Saudi-led war had left 600,000 civilians dead and injured during the past three years. 

The United Nations says a record 22.2 million people are in need of food aid, including 8.4 million threatened by severe hunger. A high-ranking UN aid official recently warned against the “catastrophic” living conditions in Yemen, stating that there was a growing risk of famine and cholera there.