UN special envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths (C) arrives at the Sanaa International Airport as he leaves Sanaa, Yemen, Feb. 28, 2019. UN Special Envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths left the rebel-held capital Sanaa on Thursday after a two-day talks to push Houthis to withdraw from Hodeidah ports in line with Stockholm Agreement. (Xinhua/Mohammed Mohammed)
SANAA, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- UN Special Envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths left the rebel-held capital Sanaa on Thursday after a two-day talks to push Houthis to withdraw from Hodeidah ports in line with Stockholm Agreement.
Griffiths had met with Houthi leaders and discussed the possibility to implement the withdrawal of forces from the port city to save the Yemeni people from deadly battles.
But it wasn't clear what Griffiths has achieved during this visit, as his office did not release any statement yet.
Meanwhile, Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television cited a Yemeni government official as saying that the Houthi rebels halted the implementation of Stockholm peace deal.
It was Griffiths' sixth trip to Sanaa in two months in his attempts to break a stalemate in the implementation of a cease-fire to withdraw warring forces and secure access to grain aid in the country's Red Sea port city of Hodeidah.
Griffiths has been shuttling between the Houthi rebels in Sanaa and the exiled government in the Saudi capital of Riyadh to avert an all-out deadly fighting in Hodeidah, the lifeline of the country's most commercial imports and humanitarian aid.
On Monday, Houthi spokesman Yahya Sarea said that their militias will not withdraw until a date is specified for the withdrawal of their foe Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces from around the port city.
"The first phase of the UN plan sets a date of our withdrawal only, while it didn't specify any date for the withdrawal of the other side (government troops)," Sarea told Xinhua by phone, stipulating that the other side should also start to withdraw in the same time.
The warring parties reached a peace deal in Stockholm in December last year. They have largely held the cease-fire deal in Hodeidah but failed to withdraw their forces.
The deal seeks to save more than 20 million Yemenis from sliding into major starvation.
The Houthi rebels continue to fortify themselves inside the city while the government troops have been massing on the southern and eastern outskirts.
The four-year civil war has killed more than 10,000 people, mostly civilians, displaced 3 million others, and pushed the country to the brink of famine.
