UN-sponsored Yemen peace talks begin in Kuwait
Talks aimed at ending Yemen's war opened in Kuwait on April 21, with Kuwait's top diplomat appealing to both sides to "turn war into peace" after more than a year of conflict which has killed more than 6,200 people and caused a humanitarian crisis.
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Yemen's foreign minister warned against high expectations from the UN-sponsored talks, which brought together the Houthi group and its General People's Congress party allies with the Saudi-backed government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
The talks, originally scheduled to start on April 22, were delayed over accusations by the Houthi group of truce violations and disagreements over the agenda for the negotiations.
Kuwait's foreign minister Sheikh Sabah al-Khalid al-Sabah, in an opening speech at Bayan Palace, urged Yemenis to "turn war into peace and backwardness into development".
The talks are based on UN Security Council resolution 2216 which calls for the Houthis to withdraw from areas they seized since 2014 and hand heavy weapons back to the government, UN special envoy to Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed said.
"The choice today is one of two options: a safe homeland that ensures security for all of its citizens... or remnants of a land whose sons die everyday," Ould Cheikh Ahmed said in an opening speech.
The talks are expected to focus on creating a more inclusive government and restoring state authority over the country, which is now divided between the Houthis and Hadi's administration.
The war has caused a major humanitarian crisis in Yemen, the poorest country in the Arabian Peninsula. Apart from the more than 6,200 killed, the United Nations says some 35,000 people have been wounded and more than 2.5 million people displaced.
