UN Approves Team to Monitor Ceasefire in Yemen's Hudaydah

TEHRAN (defapress) – The United Nations Security Council unanimously approved the deployment of its observers to Yemen to monitor a fragile truce in the strategic Red Sea port of Hudaydah.

News ID: 74479

Date: 22 December 2018 - 10:41

The resolution, submitted by the United Kingdom, was the subject of tough negotiations, and was amended several times before the vote on Friday, Al Jazeera reported.

The resolution also endorsed the results of UN-brokered peace talks in Sweden last week, when Yemen's warring parties agreed to a ceasefire that took effect on Tuesday.

The truce in Hudaydah, a key gateway for aid and food imports in the impoverished nation, was a part of the truce.

The ceasefire between Yemen's Houthi Ansarullah movement and forces loyal to fugitive former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi is seen as the best chance yet of ending four years of Saudi war on Yemen.

The agreement also included a planned prisoner swap involving some 15,000 detainees.

After Friday's meeting, Karen Pierce, Britain's ambassador to the UN, said UN ceasefire monitors were needed in Hudaydah urgently and a core group of them would be dispatched to Yemen within days.

In a second phase, Guterres would have one month to determine the full size and scope of the mission and how it will ensure troops vacate the city and port, Pierce said.

Guterres "is going to deploy an advance team first and that team will go in the next few days", said Pierce. "He needs to get people there quickly and therefore the Security Council has been willing to authorize for 30 days an advance team."

Later, the UN chief will "submit plans for a larger monitoring mission", she added.

French ambassador Francois Delattre said the unanimous vote sent a "strong signal of the council's unity and engagement" on Yemen, and that it had put its weight behind the UN-brokered talks.

Diplomats said the UN observer mission could consist of 30 to 40 people, tasked with ensuring the withdrawal of the warring parties from Hudaydah and the safe passage of humanitarian aid.

The observers will head up monitoring teams made up of Houthi and pro-Hadi representatives, under the auspices of a Redeployment Coordination Committee headed by Cammaert.

Message end/