ADEN: Yemen’s Ansar Allah movement and the United Nations have agreed on a mechanism to inspect ships docking at Hodeidah following the group’s withdrawal from three Red Sea ports under a UN —sponsored deal, an official of Ansar Allah and a UN source said.
The Ansar Allah’s unilateral pullout last month from the ports of Saleef, used for grain, Ras Isa oil terminal and Hodeidah, the main entry point for commercial and aid imports, represented the only progress in implementing the deal reached last December.
“We agreed with the UN on a mechanism to inspect ships docking in the ports of Hodeidah and its implementation will start in the coming days,” Ansar Allah transport minister Zakaria Shami was quoted as saying on Tuesday by the group’s Al Masirah TV.
A United Nations source confirmed that an agreement has been reached with UN inspection body, the Verification and Inspection Mechanism for Yemen (UNVIM). UNVIM still needs to sign a separate agreement with the military coalition that monitors ships on the high seas heading to Yemen.
The alliance intervened in Yemen in 2015 to try to restore the internationally recognised government ousted from power in the capital Sanaa by the Ansar Allah movement in late 2014.
Djibouti-based UNVIM was set up in 2015, as the coalition accused the Ansar Allah of smuggling missiles and arms through Yemeni ports under their control, including through Hodeidah.
The Hodeidah ceasefire and troop redeployment agreement was reached last year at peace talks in Sweden, as a trust building measure to pave the way for talks to end the war, but stalled for months before the Ansar Allah withdrawal.
Alliance leaders have yet to verify the Ansar Allah pullout or respond to it by pulling back pro-coalition troops that are massed on the edges of Hodeidah.
A UN official has said details of a second phase wider redeployment need to be agreed before coalition forces move. — Reuters
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