Top Aide: Iran Supports Extension of Yemen Ceasefire

Khaji made the remarks in a meeting with Hans Grundberg, the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Yemen, in Tehran.

He expressed hope that during the renewed two-month ceasefire, efforts would continue toward achieving a comprehensive agreement on a lasting truce, complete lifting of the blockade and economic embargo imposed on Yemen, the payment of salaries in the country and freedom of transit in all routes.

The Iranian diplomat also hoped that military, economic and political committees would start their activities and all the necessary mechanisms for supervising commitment to the ceasefire would be fully implemented.

The UN special envoy, for his part, outlined the latest proposals presented to the Yemeni parties to solve the crisis in the country.

Grundberg said the two-month renewal of the ceasefire in the war-ravaged country would be an opportunity to achieve a regular mechanism for paying the salaries of the employees, opening routes among provinces, adding flight destinations at the Sana’a airport and guaranteeing fuel shipment to the port city of Al-Hudaydah.

He noted that the truce would prepare the ground for setting up military, economic and political committees with the aim of monitoring the implementation of the ceasefire agreement.

Grundberg stated on Tuesday that a direly-needed truce between Yemen’s aggressors and the impoverished country’s popular resistance Houthi Ansarullah movement had been renewed for another two-month-long period.

The extension, running from August 2 to October 2, “includes a commitment from the parties to intensify negotiations to reach an expanded truce agreement as soon as possible”, the UN diplomat continued.

Saudi Arabia launched a devastating war on Yemen in March 2015 in collaboration with its Arab allies and with arms and logistics support from the US, the UK and other Western states.

The objective was to reinstall the Riyadh-friendly regime of Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, and crush the Ansarullah resistance movement, which has been running state affairs in the absence of a functional government in Yemen.

While the Saudi-led coalition has failed to meet its objectives, the war has killed hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and spawned the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The conflict has been described by the UN as the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis”, and has resulted in the deaths of 377,000 people, more than two-thirds under the age of five, per UN figures at the end of 2021.