SANA’A (Al Jazeera) – The United Nations says Yemen’s warring parties have agreed to renew an existing truce for another two months, the UN envoy has said, despite international pressure for an extended and expanded deal.
Special envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg said in a statement on Tuesday that the Saudi-, UAE-backed militants and the Sana’a-based government agreed to extend the truce.
“This truce extension includes a commitment from the parties to intensify negotiations to reach an expanded truce agreement as soon as possible,” Grundberg said in a statement.
The envoy had been pushing for a six-month truce with additional measures, according to the Reuters news agency, but both sides have had grievances about the implementation of the existing truce deal, and mistrust runs deep.
“The main objective of the current truce continues to be to provide tangible relief to civilians and to create a conducive environment for reaching a peaceful settlement to the conflict through a comprehensive political process,” Grundberg added.
Saudi Arabia launched a devastating war on Yemen in March 2015 in collaboration with its Arab allies and with arms, logistical, and political support from the United States and other Western states. Simultaneously with the invasion, the aggressors and their supporters also put the entire impoverished country under an all-out land, aerial, and naval blockade.
The objective was to reinstall the Riyadh-friendly regime of former Yemeni president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, and crush Ansarullah, which has been running state affairs in the absence of a functional government in Yemen.
While the Saudi-led coalition has failed to achieve any of its objectives, the war has killed hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and spawned the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
The United Nations brokered the truce between the coalition and Ansarullah, which came into effect in April, and was extended for another two months on June 2.
Under the truce, commercial flights have resumed from the Yemeni capital of Sana’a to Jordan and Egypt, while oil tankers have been able to dock in the lifeline port city of al-Hudaydah.
“In the coming weeks, I will intensify my engagements...to ensure the full implementation of all the parties’ obligations in the truce,” Grundberg said, adding he wanted to “put Yemen on a path to sustainable peace.”