UN envoy arrives in Aden for Yemen peace talks

By Ali Oweida

MAARIB, Yemen (AA) – UN Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths arrived Tuesday in Yemen’s coastal city of Aden for talks with President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi on resolving the 4-year Yemeni conflict, a government source said.

Griffiths will pursue his efforts to resolve the Yemeni crisis, the source told Anadolu Agency on condition of anonymity as he is not authorized to speak to media.

Talks will tackle political and security solutions to the raging conflict in Yemen, the source said.

On Monday Griffiths said he held “constructive” meetings in Saudi Arabia, extolling Saudi support for his efforts to restore peace to war-torn Yemen.

Impoverished Yemen has remained wracked by violence since 2014, when Shia Houthi rebels overran much of the country, including capital Sanaa.

The conflict escalated in 2015 when Saudi Arabia and its Sunni-Arab allies -- who accuse the Houthis of serving as proxies for Shia Iran -- launched a massive air campaign in Yemen aimed at rolling back Houthi gains.

The following year, UN-sponsored peace talks in Kuwait failed to end the destructive conflict.

The violence has devastated Yemen’s infrastructure, including water and sanitation systems, prompting the UN to describe the situation as “one of the worst humanitarian disasters of modern times”.