Iran Urges All Sides to Maintain Yemen Ceasefire

The Iranian Foreign Ministry has welcomed a three-day ceasefire in Yemen, urging all parties engaged in the conflict to make efforts to maintain the truce and end the fruitless war in the country, Press T.V reported.

In a statement on Monday, the United Nations special envoy for Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, said a break from fighting between forces of the Saudi-led coalition and Houthi Ansarullah fighters would begin just before midnight Wednesday at 23:59 local time and continue for 72 hours.

“The special envoy welcomes the restoration of the cessation of hostilities, which will spare the Yemeni people further bloodshed and will allow for the expanded delivery of humanitarian assistance,” the statement added.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Bahram Qassemi, on Tuesday said Yemen is suffering from a very deplorable humanitarian situation and expressed hope that all parties engaged in the conflict, particularly the Saudi-led coalition, would respect the ceasefire.

He also hoped that the warring parties would allow the immediate dispatch of humanitarian aid to the oppressed Yemeni civilians and the wounded, including those injured in a recent bloody airstrike against a funeral hall in the capital of Sana’a.

More than 140 people were killed and over 525 wounded on October 8,when a Saudi air raid hit a community hall in the south of the capital, where a funeral for the father of Interior Minister Jalal al-Roweishan was being held.

The death toll was one of the largest in a single incident since March 2015, when the Riyadh regime began its deadly campaign to crush the Yemeni Houthi Ansarullah movement and their allies and restore power to the resigned president, AbdRabbuh Mansur Hadi.

Following a meeting between US Secretary of State John Kerry, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, and Cheikh Ahmed in London on Sunday, the three sides called on the warring parties in the Yemeni conflict to declare an immediate ceasefire.

Earlier, Hadi and Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir both announced they were willing to take part in a ceasefire if Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement was also willing to do so.

R.S