In a phone call to Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Thursday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has praised the Kingdom’s efforts to reach a political solution to the Yemen war that has been raging since 2014, expressing his gratitude for Saudi efforts in achieving a truce between warring parties in Yemen.
While discussing the latest regional and international developments and the UN’s efforts toward them, Guterres commended Saudi Arabia’s continuous efforts to reach a political solution to the Yemeni crisis.
All Yemeni political, tribal, and religious leaders along with journalists, activists, economists, and the heads of NGOs were invited to the Saudi capital last month by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to join unprecedented talks under its aegis to examine and propose solutions to Yemen’s problems.
The most important outcome of the talks only the Iran-backed Houthis haven’t participated in was the formation of the Presidential Leadership Council and the roadmap for bringing peace and stability to war-torn Yemen.
Led by Rashad Al-Alimi, the Council is a body of eight people comprising Yemeni leaders of different parties, including Saleh’s supporters and separatists. The former President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi passed powers to the new Council last week, empowering it to run the country and negotiate with the Houthis.
The phone call between Guterres and the Saudi Crown Prince came after the speech that the UN envoy to Yemen Hans Grundberg delivered in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital held by the Houthi militia, and his address to the Security Council on Thursday, calling for serious engagement to uphold a truce between the Arab Coalition and the Houthis agreed at the beginning of April.
The Swedish diplomat said on Wednesday that the UN is relying on the continued commitment and serious engagement in upholding the truce by all the parties in the conflict, stressing they need to be mindful of the challenges despite the fact that the truce is broadly holding at the moment.
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