UN envoy to Yemen seeks to downplay non-start of talks
SANAA, Yemen — The U.N. special envoy to Yemen sought to downplay the significance of the failure of peace talks to start, saying on Saturday that he would head back to Yemen and neighbouring Oman “within days” to try and agree on a new date.
A delegation of the internationally recognized government arrived in Geneva for the talks, which were supposed to start Thursday, but their war rivals — Iranian-backed rebels known as the Houthis — did not, arguing they could not go because they did not have guarantees for their safe return.
Addressing a news conference in Geneva, Martin Griffiths declined to blame either side for the failure to start the talks, saying apportioning blame would not help Yemen. He insisted that the “consultation” — the term used by the U.N. to refer to the talks — had begun when he and his team held three days of talks with the government delegation. The results of these talks, he said, would be relayed to Houthi representatives in Oman and Yemen.
“We will have similar consultations with Ansar Allah (the Houthis’ formal name) … we will go, and we will discuss with them the fruits of the discussions we’ve had here. So we will be going to Muscat and Sanaa to take up the issues that we will have discussed here. This is what I mean by, ‘We have begun.’”