LONDON: The United States, Britain and the UN peace envoy to Yemen on Sunday urged the warring parties in the country’s civil war to declare a ceasefire they said could start within days.
The United Nations envoy, Ismail Ould Sheikh Ahmed, said: “We are here to call for an immediate cessation of hostilities, which will be declared in the next few hours.”
Sheikh Ahmed said he had been in contact with the rebel Huthi militia’s lead negotiator and with Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi’s government.
But he also warned that he hoped for “clearer plans” for a ceasefire in coming days.
US Secretary of State John Kerry would not predict whether Yemen’s government or rebel forces had accepted the demand, but said the diplomats were not operating “in a vacuum.”
“This is the time to implement a ceasefire unconditionally and then move to the negotiating table,” Kerry told reporters.
Kerry was speaking after meeting Sheikh Ahmed and his opposite numbers from Britain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates at talks hosted by Britain in London.
Washington’s top diplomat said he, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Sheikh Ahmed are calling for the ceasefire to begin “as rapidly as possible, meaning Monday, Tuesday”.
The senior envoys, he said, had been in touch with Hadi’s government and with the Huthi rebels who drove him from the country to push for peace.
“We cannot emphasise enough today the urgency of ending the violence in Yemen,” Kerry said.
Johnson agreed, saying: “The fatalities that we’re seeing there are unacceptable.
There should be a ceasefire and the United Nation UN should lead the way in calling for that ceasefire.”—APP
