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Yemeni peace talks expected to start Thursday in Kuwait: UN

Xinhua, April 21, 2016 Adjust font size:

The Yemeni peace negotiations will start on Thursday in Kuwait under the auspices of the United Nations, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters here Wednesday.

The delegations will focus on the implementation of the Security Council resolution 2216, Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here.

"They are expected to develop a framework that paves the way for a peaceful and orderly process based on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) initiative and the outcomes of the National Dialogue Conference," he said.

On Tuesday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged all parties to the peace process in Yemen to "engage in good faith" with his envoy, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, so that "talks can start without further delay."

"The secretary-general is convinced that seizing this opportunity to move the process forward will help resolve outstanding issues and bring the end of this prolonged conflict closer," said a statement issued here by Ban's spokesman. "The Yemeni people and the region deserve no less."

On Monday, the secretary-general's special envoy for Yemen announced that the start of the peace negotiations had been postponed.

The Kuwait talks are the third round of negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations, after two previous ones in June and December of 2015 failed to yield any progress.

It is hoped that the latest talks would end more than a year of Yemen's civil war and a Saudi Arabia-led military intervention, which have claimed more than 6,400 lives, over half being civilians, and displaced millions, according to UN statistics.

A latest cease-fire kicked off on April 10 and was supposed to pave the way for Monday's talks, but both warring sides have complained of violations by the other side, including continued heavy shelling and air strikes.

The crisis in Yemen started in 2011, when former President Ali Abdullah Saleh was forced to step down from his 33-year rule and handed power to his then deputy Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, as part of a wave of protests and political turmoil that swept the whole Arab world. Enditem