UN envoy leaves Yemen after 3-day talks with Houthis

SANAA

UN envoy Martin Griffiths departed Sanaa on Tuesday following a three-day visit to Yemen during which he held intensive talks with Houthi rebel leaders.

“Griffiths left without making any press statements,” a source at Sanaa International Airport told Anadolu Agency.

The source, who asked not to be named due to the issue's sensitivity, said that several Houthi leaders had bid the envoy farewell at the airport.

Griffiths arrived in Sanaa on Sunday, where he met Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi and Mahdi al-Mashat, head of the Houthis’ Supreme Political Council, which currently governs the Houthi-held capital.

At his meetings with Houthi officials, Griffiths discussed arrangements for an upcoming round of talks aimed at resuming Yemen’s stalled political process and ending the country’s four-year-old conflict.

An earlier round of talks, scheduled for Sept. 6 in Geneva, was postponed after members of the Houthi delegation failed to obtain permission -- through the UN -- from a Saudi-led coalition to leave the country.

The Yemeni government delegation, for its part, had accused the Houthis of “fabricating” excuses for not attending the talks in Geneva.

The upcoming talks will be the fourth round of consultations between Yemen’s warring parties since the conflict erupted four years ago, when the Houthis overran much of the country, including capital Sanaa.

Reporting by Mohamed al-Samei; Writing by Ali Abo Rezeg