Saudi FM says efforts to extend the truce in Yemen still stand

Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister said that the efforts to extend the truce in Yemen still stand, Al Arabiya TV reported on Wednesday, after an initial UN-brokered pact between a Saudi-led coalition and the Houthi movement expired early this month, Reuters reports.

The Kingdom, the coalition and the Riyadh-backed Yemeni government are “keen on extending the truce,” the Saudi-owned TV quoted Foreign Minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, as saying.

The United Nations is pressing for an extended and expanded truce that would build on the two-month one that expired on 2 October, after being rolled over twice, and which has brought the longest stretch of relative calm in the seven-year conflict.

US Special Envoy for Yemen, Tim Lenderking, headed back to the region on Tuesday to support the UN-led negotiations with Yemeni parties, according to the State Department.

Lenderking, last week, called on the Iran-aligned Houthis, de facto authorities in the north, to show more flexibility in the negotiations, specifically on the United Nations’ proposed mechanism to pay public sector wages.

The Saudi-led coalition intervened in March 2015 after the Houthis ousted the internationally recognised government from the capital, Sana’a. The group says it is fighting a corrupt system and foreign aggression.

The conflict has killed tens of thousands and caused a dire humanitarian crisis that has pushed millions into hunger.

READ: Yemen’s Houthis should be more flexible over truce deal, says US Envoy