Yemen peace talks to resume on Saturday: UN spokesman

The Yemeni peace talks are expected to resume with both delegations in Kuwait on Saturday in a bid to bring security and stability to the war-torn Middle East country, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters here Friday.

The delegation of Ansarallah and General People's Congress arrived in Kuwait on Friday, Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here, adding that the UN special envoy for Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, was in Riyadh on Friday to meet with Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hai and the delegation of the government of Yemen.

The UN-facilitated peace negotiations aimed at ending Yemen's civil war officially halted in Kuwait on June 29 and is expected to be resumed in mid-July.

Political observers said the UN-brokered peace talks, which kicked off in Kuwait City on April 11, failed to reach any tangible breakthroughs after two months of negotiations.

Delegates of the government strongly insisted that they represents Yemen's sole legitimate governing authority, and called for the full implementation of last year's UN Security Council Resolution 2216.

The resolution orders Houthi militias to withdraw from Sanaa and all other cities occupied earlier, hand back weapons and release political prisoners before forming new sharing transitional government.

However, the Houthis and their allies, for their part, say that they represent the country's de facto rulers and urged to form a new transitional government before discussing withdrawal from cities and the other topics.

Meanwhile, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, Jamie McGoldrick, has expressed concern regarding the lack of foreign currency reserves in the Yemen Central Bank, Dujarric said.

"Without such reserves, Yemen's commercial sector is unable to receive lines of credit, curbing Yemen's capability to import key staples such as rice and wheat."

Yemeni families are already paying as much as 30 percent over pre-crisis wheat prices in some areas of the country. Seven million people are severely food insecure.

The United Nations has provided food assistance to an average of 4 million people a month between January and May this year.

The civil war has drawn in Saudi-led coalition in March 2015, in response to President Hadi's call to restore his internationally recognized government to the capital Sanaa.

The civil war has killed more than 6,000 people, half of them civilians, injured more 35,000 others, and displaced over 2 million, according to humanitarian aid agencies.

Yemen's conflict began after 2011 massive popular protests that demanded an end to the 33-year rule of then President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Endit