A Yemeni official expressed on Monday the legitimate government’s disappointed with UN envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths’ failure to implement any of the understandings that he has repeatedly announced since his appointment to his mission a year ago.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Iran-backed Houthi “militias continue to violate the truce in Yemen and they continue to regroup. We only see signs of war, not peace.”
He said that, unfortunately, the UN envoy has only achieved the rescheduling of the militias’ promises and failed to implement any agreement, whether in Hodeidah or Taiz.
The official also accused Griffiths of failing to mark any progress in the prisoner swap file, adding that the envoy has also fallen short of announcing which party was responsible for hindering peace in Yemen.
A year since Griffiths’ appointment as UN envoy in Yemen, progress to reach a solution has been slow and the Houthis are still evading promises to implement agreements reached between the warring parties.
Griffiths met Houthi leaders in Sanaa for the first time on March 22, 2018. Although he regularly visits the Houthi-held capital, the militias still adopt stalling tactics and refuse to make concessions for peace.
Despite the complexities in the conflict, Griffiths remains confident about achieving peace.
In his briefing to the UN Security Council on March 30, 2018, the envoy promised to make progress towards the production of a framework for negotiations in Yemen in two months.
On June 5, Griffiths again visited Sanaa, where he held meetings with senior Houthi leaders and General People’s Congress members.
On August 2, the envoy announced his plan to invite warring parties to Geneva on September 6 for a first round of consultations.
In a briefing to the Security Council on September 11, Griffiths said he was disappointed for being unable to bring the Houthi delegation from Sanaa to Geneva, but added he should continue discussions by beginning a set of visits to Muscat and then to Sanaa, to engage with the political leadership in those two cities.
In December, Griffiths visited Sanaa, Aden and Riyadh several times, and managed to bring the Yemeni warring parties to Sweden for peace talks.
On December 5, the envoy said representatives of the Yemeni government and the Houthi militias would be sitting down to talks in Sweden, offering hope for restarting the peace process in their country.
But since then, the envoy has failed to convince the Houthis to implement the Stockholm Agreement and militants continue to violate the UN-brokered ceasefire in Hodeidah.
