United Nations, United States: Yemen's warring parties are unable to agree on terms for a new round of peace talks, two months after holding their first face-to-face meeting, the UN envoy said Wednesday.
Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed told the UN Security Council that "deep divisions persist that prevent me from calling for the next round of talks."
Yemen's Saudi-backed government sat down with Shiite Huthi rebels and their allies in December to begin talks on ending a war that has brought the impoverished Arab country to its knees.
The UN-brokered negotiations held in Switzerland were to resume in mid-January, but that meeting was delayed and no new date has been announced.
The UN envoy said the parties were divided on "whether a new round of talks should be convened with or without a new cessation of hostilities" and were not willing to offer sufficient guarantees that a truce would hold.
Confidence-building measures such as prisoner exchanges that were agreed to during the first round have yet to be implemented, he said.
"We cannot delay these talks beyond, in my view, the month of March," the envoy told reporters.
More than 6,000 people have been killed in Yemen since a Saudi-led coalition began an air war in March last year to push back an offensive by the Huthi rebels who control the capital Sanaa.
A ceasefire went into force on December 15, but it was repeatedly violated and the Saudi-led coalition announced an end to the truce on January 2.
AFP
