{"id":2561,"date":"2015-05-30T16:59:08","date_gmt":"2015-05-30T16:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/box5917.temp.domains\/~iriacom\/\/news\/?p=2561"},"modified":"2015-05-30T16:59:08","modified_gmt":"2015-05-30T16:59:08","slug":"un-envoy-arrives-in-yemen-amidst-heavy-fighting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/un-envoy-arrives-in-yemen-amidst-heavy-fighting\/","title":{"rendered":"UN envoy arrives in Yemen amidst heavy fighting"},"content":{"rendered":"

UN special envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed<\/a><\/span>\u00a0arrived in Sana’a yesterday for talks with political parties in the war-ravaged country.<\/p>\n

“All Yemeni parties must return to dialogue,” he said, quoted by sabanews<\/a>.net upon his arrival at Sana’a airport.<\/p>\n

A UN conference due to take place in Geneva on Thursday was postponed, in a fresh blow to UN efforts to broker peace in a country where nearly 2,000 people have been killed since March.<\/p>\n

Foreign Minister Riyadh Yassin said the government would not take part unless Houthi rebels withdrew from at least part of the territory they have seized, in line with a UN Security Council resolution.<\/p>\n

Yemen Crisis 2015 at a glance<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia has been leading an air war that has targeted the Iran-backed rebels in Yemen on a daily basis since March 26, barring a five-day humanitarian ceasefire this month. The Saudi-led coalition airstrikes<\/a><\/span> are aimed at restoring the authority of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who has sought refuge in Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, heavy fighting erupted in southern Yemen near Aden airport when local militia attacked Houthi<\/a><\/span> rebels in a push to drive them from the district, residents and fighters said.<\/p>\n

Saudi-led forces also made four air strikes on a military base near the airport, a source in the southern militia said.<\/p>\n

Aden is Yemen’s commercial hub. Its airport has been closed since fighting began but its port provides sporadic access for desperately needed humanitarian aid to enter the country.<\/p>\n

Houthis and forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh are concentrated around Aden’s districts of Khor Maksar, Crater and Moalla.<\/p>\n

The fighting in Khor Maksar has killed four southern militia fighters and 15 Houthis so far, the militia source said.<\/p>\n

Later Houthis fired shells at Saudi Arabia’s southwestern province of Jizan, according to their official Twitter account. There was no immediate information about casualties.<\/p>\n

UN-sponsored peace talks set to be held in Geneva this week have been postponed because of the heavy fighting.<\/p>\n

\"Smoke<\/a>

Smoke rises after a Saudi-led airstrike hit a site where many believe the largest weapons cache in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, on April 21, 2015. Photo: Hani Mohammed\/AP Photo<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UN special envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed\u00a0arrived in Sana’a yesterday for talks with political parties in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2563,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[44,1],"tags":[204,356,101,17,149,128,114],"class_list":["post-2561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east","category-news","tag-crisis","tag-middle-east","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-un","tag-unsc","tag-war","tag-yemen"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/unenvoyforyemen.jpg?fit=700%2C376&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jJWb-Fj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2561"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2565,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2561\/revisions\/2565"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}