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Yemen’s warring factions are set to begin negotiations in the Swiss city of Geneva on Monday, the first significant talks in the Middle East country’s monthslong conflict.
The talks, facilitated by the United Nations, will bring to the table Yemen’s Shiite Houthi rebels and the exiled government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.
They had been scheduled for Sunday, but were postponed by one day on Friday.
The Houthis wrested control of Yemen’s government in February, leading Mr. Hadi to flee to Riyadh, the Saudi capital.
Mr. Hadi has supported a Saudi-led air offensive that began in late March and aims to oust the Houthis and restore him to power.
Both sides have played down expectations for the conference.
The U.N. and Mr. Hadi’s officials have described the talks as “consultations,” and not negotiations.
Houthi leaders have said they will participate, but without any preconditions.
Khaled Bahah, Mr. Hadi’s vice president and prime minister, said the discussions would focus on implementing U.N. Security Council resolution 2216.
That resolution was adopted in April and demanded that the Houthis withdraw from the parts of the country they have seized, something they are unlikely to do.
“We don’t expect much from [the Houthis] in Geneva,” Mr. Bahah said this week in Riyadh, where the exiled government is based. “By going to Geneva they recognize the international legitimacy [of the government in exile], which they previously said that they don’t recognize.”
The U.N.’s Special Envoy for Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, has been shuttling between Yemen’s capital San’a and Riyadh in recent weeks for consultations toward a peace settlement.
In announcing the talks on June 6, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for a pause in fighting to enable peace talks and stepped-up aid deliveries to Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country.
‘By going to Geneva they recognize the international legitimacy [of the government in exile], which they previously said that they don’t recognize.’
The Iran-backed Houthis, who adhere to the Zaidi offshoot of Shiite Islam, took control of the government early this year after initially storming the capital, San’a, in September.
The U.N. estimated last month that almost 2,000 people had been killed in Yemen since the Saudi-led campaign began. Another 500,000 have been displaced amid the fighting.
The Saudi coalition and the Houthis agreed to a five-day humanitarian cease fire lastmonth, but aid groups said the window was too short the to address dire needs for food, fuel and medicine. Yemen imports almost all of its food, and a fuel shortage has hampered deliveries of humanitarian supplies.
A strike thought to have been fired by the Saudi-led coalition hit San’a’s old city on Friday morning, killing seven civilians and flattening a part of the area deemed a world heritage site by the U.N.’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or Unesco.
San’a is one of the world’s best-preserved continuously inhabited cities, with its old city one of the country’s most popular tourist sites.
Dozens of civilians in the densely populated area rushed to the scene in the minutes after the airstrike, using their hands to dig out neighbors from the rubble.
On Friday, an aide to Saudi coalition spokesman Brig. Gen. Ahmed Aseeri denied that it had struck the old city.
Earlier in June, Unesco Director General Irina Bokova condemned Saudi-led airstrikes on other ancient sites across Yemen.
