RIMBO, Sweden/ADEN, Yemen: Yemen’s warring parties agreed Wednesday to reopen Sanaa airport in the Houthi-held capital and resume oil and gas exports, sources said, as Western nations pressed them to accept confidence-building steps before the end of U.N.-led peace talks in Sweden. The development comes as the U.S. Senate voted to advance a resolution to end U.S. military support for the Arab coalition in Yemen’s civil war, setting the stage for debate and a later vote in the chamber.
President Donald Trump’s administration had urged lawmakers to back continued military support for the coalition. But several of his fellow Republicans joined Democrats to give the measure the 60 votes needed to advance.
The Iranian-aligned Houthi movement and the Saudi-backed government of Abed Rabbou Mansour Hadi were still discussing a United Nations proposal on the contested port city of Hodeida, a lifeline for millions of Yemenis facing starvation.
Hadi’s premier Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed told reporters in the government’s base in the southern port of Aden that there might not be enough time for full agreement on Hodeida as the talks, the first in over two years, conclude Thursday.
“We talked about [it] a lot but with the limited time we have, we can’t talk about all the points in this round. The important thing is to build confidence and then go into the details of the Hodeida file,” he said.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was due to attend the final day of talks to support efforts to launch a political process that would end the nearly 4-year-old war.
Guterres called Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman to discuss Yemen, the Saudi state news agency reported.
Another round of talks could be held in early 2019.
Meanwhile, U.S.-based Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project tracking Yemen’s civil war reported that the conflict has killed more than 60,000 people, both combatants and civilians, since 2016.
The Houthis hold most population centers, including Hodeida and Sanaa, from which it ousted Hadi’s government in 2014.
A U.N. spokeswoman said both parties had received a “final package” of agreements covering the status of Hodeida, Sanaa airport.
“We hope to receive positive responses,” she said.
The two parties agreed that international flights would stop at a government-held airport for safety procedures to be carried out before flying in or out of Sanaa, two sources familiar with the talks said.
Houthi delegate Abdel-Majid Hanash said international flights from and to Sanaa would stop in Aden and the airport in Sayun in the south, but the U.N. would oversee the safety procedures.
The U.N. declined to comment.
As part of confidence-building measures, both sides agreed to resume oil and gas exports to help shore up central bank coffers.
Revenues would be used to pay salaries in both government and Houthi-held areas, delegates from both sides told Reuters.
The Arab military coalition that intervened in the war in 2015 to restore Hadi’s government controls Yemen’s air space.U.N. envoy Martin Griffiths, trying to avert a full-scale assault on Hodeida, where coalition forces have massed on the outskirts, is asking both sides to withdraw from the city.
His proposal envisions an interim entity being formed to run the city and port and international monitors being deployed.
Both sides have agreed to a U.N. role in the port, the entry point for most of Yemen’s commercial imports and vital aid, but differ on who should run the city.
On Hodeida, Yemen’s Foreign Minister Khaled al-Yamani told the Associated Press his side would only agree to a full rebel withdrawal while government forces would “reposition themselves into our barracks out of the outskirts of the city.”
A police force would then be set up to patrol Hodeida, he said.
Later Wednesday, Hanash said his side accepted some of Griffiths’ proposals, specifically the one on Hodeida. He told reporters the rebels agreed to halt all fighting in Hodeida, withdraw troops from the city and its port, and later also from the province, while allowing U.N. oversight and the setting up of a local administration.