The United Nations Security Council is expected to receive Tuesday its monthly briefing on Yemen by Special Envoy Martin Griffiths about his labored efforts to broker an agreement between the Yemeni government and Iran-backed Houthi militias for a nationwide ceasefire, a series of confidence-building measures and the resumption of peace talks.
The briefing comes four months after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guetteres called on fighting in Yemen to cease and focus be directed on combating the threat of COVID-19 and to use this opportunity to reach a political solution.
The Yemeni government supports the UN envoy’s peace efforts. However, it rejected amendments to a peace draft proposed by Griffiths, describing it as “Houthi biased.”
As for the militias, they challenged the international organization and confiscated billions of Yemeni riyals from the salaries of employees at the Central Bank branch in Hodeidah.
“The efforts of the UN envoy have reached a deadlock,” Yemeni political sources told Asharq Al-Awsat.
They said Houthis refuse to discuss the UN proposed draft agreements on a nationwide ceasefire, humanitarian and economic measures and the urgent resumption of the political process aimed at comprehensively ending the conflict.
Economic sources in Sanaa told Asharq Al-Awsat that Mahdi al-Mashat, head of the Houthis’ so-called supreme political council, ordered on Monday that employees in militia-held areas, be paid half their salaries while he dismissed tens of thousands of others who are on the run for fear of being arrested. He said they will not be paid because they have not been showing up to work.
“Houthis confiscated around $11 million from the account of salaries deposited in the Central Bank branch in Hodeidah,” the sources said.
Yemeni Information minister Muamar al-Iryani dismissed on Monday Houthi claims that international pressure was preventing them from paying employee salaries. Such allegations are “cheap propaganda” aimed at misleading the public, covering up their constant looting of wages and public funds and obstructing government and UN efforts to pay salaries.
