How Iran sees the recent Yemen ceasefire deal

Tabnak – Over three years and a half since the start of the Saudi-led invasion of Yemen and after intensive talks under the UN supervision, a preliminary truce deal was reached between rival Yemeni camps. While welcoming the preliminary deal, Iran has called for more efforts to reach a final agreement for ending the bloody war in Yemen.

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi said the country welcomes the agreements and understandings reached between the Yemeni warring sides during the UN-brokered peace talks in Sweden.

In a statement late on Thursday, Qassemi described the confidence-building measures and preliminary agreements to continue the negotiations as positive and promising.

He further called the ceasefire agreement reached on the Yemeni port city of Hudaydah very important and praised the Yemeni parties for understanding the catastrophic situation which the impoverished country is going through.

The spokesman also expressed hope that the port city of Hudaydah and other Yemeni ports and airports, including Sana’a airport, would be prepared to receive humanitarian aid as soon as possible.

Qassemi highlighted the “constructive” role played by the Islamic Republic of Iran in facilitating the Yemeni-Yemeni talks in Sweden, saying Tehran made the contribution as part of its responsible approach toward regional crises.

“Iran still believes that the final solution to the Yemen crisis lies in the cessation of war and bloodshed and the continuation of Yemeni-Yemeni talks, as stipulated in the four-point plan earlier proposed by the Iranian foreign minister,” Qassemi added.

In April 2015, the Iranian foreign minister submitted a four-point peace plan for Yemen to the United Nations in an attempt to end the bloodshed in the Arab country.

Earlier, the spokesman for Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement Mohammad Abdulsalam, who headed a delegation in the UN-brokered peace talks in Sweden, said a ceasefire was reached in the last day of the talks for the western port city of al-Hudaydah.

Abdulsalam said the warring parties agreed on Thursday to a ceasefire for the flashpoint city of Hudaydah and its surrounding governorate, the Arabic-language Al Mayadeen TV reported.

“We gave many concessions on Hudaydah to save the Yemeni people, and we retreated from our positions,” the senior Yemeni official noted.

The Yemeni peace talks opened in the Swedish capital of Stockholm on December 7 on an upbeat note, with the warring sides agreeing to a broad prisoner swap, boosting hopes that the talks would not deteriorate into further violence as in the past.

Some 8.4 million Yemenis are facing starvation as a result of the Saudi-led aggression, although the United Nations has warned that will probably rise to 14 million. Three-quarters of impoverished Yemen’s population, or 22 million people, require aid.