UN: Houthis undermining Yemen peace efforts

During his briefing to the UN Security Council on Thursday, the UN Envoy to Yemen Ismail Ould Sheikh Ahmed accused the Shia Houthi rebels of undermining the roadmap to peace in Yemen, Alkhaleej Online reported.

Ould Sheikh also reiterated that the military option to sort out the crisis in the country would be “hard.”

However, and although they had accepted the international peace initiative, the Houthis refused to begin standing down militarily and rejected the implementation of a UN proposal which led to the UN envoy to state that this had “undermined the international plan.”

The UN envoy did not reveal what the proposal was, but sources told Anadolu news agency that it demands that the Houthis pledged to give up their heavy weapons and ballistic rockets prior to the formation of a national unity government.