Second round of Yemen peace talks resumes in Kuwait

A second round of the UN-facilitated peace talks between Yemen's warring parties resumed Saturday in Kuwait after a two-week break, government officials said.

The negotiations aimed at ending the civil war, bringing security and stability to the war-torn Middle East country were officially halted late last month and were scheduled to resume on Friday.

The UN Special Envoy for Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed declared on Twitter that the first session of Kuwait-based talks was held Saturday evening with the presence of representatives from the two warring rivals.

Yemeni Foreign Minister Abdul-Malik Mekhlafi, who heads the government's peace negotiating team, said on Twitter that "the government decided to return to the peace talks after receiving written response from the UN envoy to our previous demands."

The upcoming talks will continue for about two weeks and will mainly focus on discussing withdrawal from cities, handing over government facilities, release of prisoners and lifting siege on cities, he said.

He added that "we agreed with the UN envoy that the two-week duration of the negotiations won't be extended more and no other topics will be debated."

The delegation of the Iran-backed Shiite Houthi rebels and their allies from General People's Congress Party arrived in Kuwait on Friday from Sanaa.

Earlier this week, sources close to Yemen's presidency office told Xinhua that the Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi asked the government delegation to boycott the UN-facilitated peace talks in Kuwait if partnership with Houthis will be imposed on them.

Yemen's presidency based in Riyadh strongly rejected the latest UN vision that suggested a coalition government with Houthis to be formed and considered it as "attempts to legitimize the Houthi coup."

Yemeni political observers said that the UN-brokered peace talks that kicked off in Kuwait City on April 11 failed to reach any tangible breakthroughs to end the conflict after more than two months of negotiations.

Delegates of the government strongly insist that they represent Yemen's sole legitimate governing authority, and call 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 a 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.

The Houthi top leaders have also reaffirmed their demand for a consensus president to lead the transition in any peace deal, but government delegates have firmly rejected and insist on implementation of the UN resolution first.

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

The civil war has killed more than 6,400 people, half of them civilians, injured more 35,000 others, and displaced over two millions, according to humanitarian aid agencies.

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