UN envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths is expected to accompany the head of the Redeployment Coordination Committee (RCC) in Hodeidah, Lieutenant-General Michael Lollesgaard, to Sanaa on Saturday for talks with the Iran-backed Houthi militias.
The meeting with the Houthi leadership falls in line with UN efforts to make the final preparations on the execution of the first phase of redeployment in the city of Hodeidah, a UN source said.
The source told Asharq Al-Awsat that the visit is expected to last for three days.
Other officials, who have recently met with Griffiths, said the UN envoy has reiterated that the Hodeidah deal is facing obstacles. However, he stressed that the agreement should not be held “captive.”
The officials, who refused to be identified, also understood from Griffiths’ comments that some figures do not want the Hodeidah Agreement, which was struck between the warring sides in Stockholm last December, to succeed.
“The UN envoy is spending time with people from both sides who want the agreement to work,” the sources said, adding that Griffiths believes there should be progress in the negotiations to end the war in Yemen.
On Thursday, Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak, Yemen's Ambassador to the United States, told Asharq Al-Awsat the Yemeni government should not accept the Houthi “tactic of dividing their commitments.”
“The international community should be clear and frank in determining the party hindering the implementation of the Stockholm Agreement, and it should exert pressure on this party,” he said.
The Ambassador said that since 2014, the militia group failed to offer any security concessions.
The RCC has been in talks with concerned parties in Yemen to discuss the final preparations for the redeployment plan in the ports of Saleef and Ras Issa.
