A plane transporting United Nations special envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths and a delegation of the Iranian-backed Houthi militias departed Sanaa on Tuesday for Sweden to attend peace consultations.
The envoy had arrived in Sanaa on Monday.
His arrival coincided with the evacuation of a number of wounded Houthis from the capital to Muscat, Oman.
The Saudi-led Arab coalition to restore legitimacy in Yemen said that the plane had departed Sanaa after the legitimate government verified the identities of the injured amid previous reports that members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards were among them.
The Houthis were determined to transport four Lebanese and two Iranians on the plane, but none were on board when it departed.
Coalition spokesman Colonel Turki al-Maliki said that the government was provided with the names of the wounded and those accompanying them.
“Their identities have been verified,” he stressed to Asharq Al-Awsat.
The facilitations to transfer the wounded to Oman were undertaken after consulting with the Yemeni government and with the coordination of the UN.
These measures were aimed at preparing the conditions and building trust for the upcoming Sweden talks, he said during a press briefing in Riyadh Monday.
The last round of Yemeni peace consultations was held in Geneva in September. It ended in failure after the Houthis did not show up. The militias had set last-minute conditions for attending the talks, including the transfer of their wounded for treatment abroad.
The fulfillment of this condition this week was seen as key to ensuring that the new round of consultations would go ahead as planned.
