Yemen: Prisoner Swap Terms Expected In Coming Days

Local Editor

Yemen’s warring parties are expected to agree on the terms of a prisoner exchange in around 10 days, a representative of the Riyadh-backed Yemeni government said on Wednesday.

Talks between the two sides took place in Jordan last week. Both parties need to agree on lists of prisoners to be swapped.

“We expect that in 10 days time the final signing will have happened,” the head of the government delegation to the prisoner-exchange talks, Hadi Haig, told Reuters by telephone.

Meanwhile, the United Nations is pushing for the exchange and a peace deal in Yemen’s main port city of al-Hudaydah. That could open the way for more talks between the Ansarullah revolutionaries and the Saudi-backed government on ending the country’s war.

The swap was one of the least contentious confidence-building measures at December’s UN-sponsored peace talks in Sweden, held amid Western pressure to end the conflict.

The International Committee of the Red Cross [ICRC] said on Wednesday that it hopes to see “progress in the coming days” and urged the warring parties not to let the opportunity slip away.

“This is a crucial moment for the people of Yemen,” Red Cross regional director Fabrizio Carboni said in a statement issued at a press conference in the capital, Sana’a.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team