British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt completed on Sunday a tour of the region to address the conflict in Yemen by visiting Aden where he warned against the failure of the Sweden peace deal.
He expressed his concern that the situation could “spiral back quickly to full scale war” if the UN-brokered agreement collapses.
“We are now in the last chance saloon for the Stockholm peace process. The port of Hodeidah was supposed to be cleared of militia and left under neutral control by the beginning of January. The process could be dead within weeks if we do not see both sides sticking to their commitments in Stockholm.
“People in Yemen are on the brink of starvation and none of the parties really want a return to hostilities - so now is the time to take a deep breath, put aside the anger and mistrust after four years of terrible fighting and take the risks that are always necessary at the start of any peace process,” he said from Aden.
His visit to the port city was the first by a Western foreign minister since the start of the conflict in 2015, and the first by a UK Foreign Secretary since 1996, said the British Foreign Office.
In a display of the UK’s support to the legitimate Yemeni government and for UN efforts to secure peace, Hunt met Yemeni Deputy Prime Minister Salem Ahmed Saeed Al Khanbashi and Foreign Minister Khaled Alyemany.
In the previous 48 hours, in Riyadh and Muscat respectively, Hunt met Yemeni President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi and spokesman for the Iran-backed Houthi militias Mohammed Abdulsalem.
While visiting the port of Aden, Hunt saw humanitarian aid being delivered and met aid workers, including representatives of the Aden Office of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), to discuss the humanitarian response.
His visit to Aden was part of a Yemen-focused Gulf tour during which he also engaged regional leaders including Saudi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Assaf, United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Sultan Qaboos of Oman. The meetings were part of a sustained UK diplomatic campaign to support the UN-led peace process, said the Foreign Office statement.
Hunt previously attended the UN’s Stockholm talks in December, and Quad (Saudi, UAE, US, UK) ministerial discussions in Warsaw in February.
The UK is the largest Western contributor of aid to the Yemen crisis. The additional £200million of aid announced by Prime Minister Theresa May on February 25 will support basic needs for over 3.8 million people, treat 20,000 vulnerable children for malnutrition and provide 2 million people with improved water supply and basic sanitation.
This brings the UK’s total humanitarian contribution to the Yemen crisis to £770m since 2015.
