UNITED NATIONS, April 18. /TASS/. Russia stands for establishing a comprehensive ceasefire regime in Yemen and hopes a new round of talks will be launched without delays, Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin said on Monday.
"We stand for establishing a comprehensive ceasefire regime in Yemen by all conflicting parties. We hope a new round of negotiations will begin without unjustified delays," he said at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council.
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He said it is necessary to ensure unhindered humanitarian access and lift blockade of Yemen staged by the Saudi-led coalition. "The soonest normalization of the situation around access to the country for commercial cargoes, primarily food products, drinking water and medicines, will alleviate suffering of Yemeni population," Churkin said.
Talks between the Yemeni government and Shia rebels (the Houthi) who support former President Ali Abdullah Saleh are to begin on Monday in Kuwait City. The beginning however has been postponed for several hours.
United Kingdom’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Matthew Rycroft said before the U.N. Security Council meeting that the talks are delayed because not all members of the delegations have arrived in Kuwait City.
The ceasefire regime in Yemen has entered into force on April 11. UN Special Envoy for Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed earlier welcomed cessation of hostilities in the country. However clashes between the conflicting parties continue in a number of Yemen’s regions.
Confrontation between the country’s authorities supported by Saudi Arabia and the Houthi rebels has continued in Yemen since August 2014. In January 2015, allies of Ansar Allah (Partisans of God), which is also known as the Houthi movement, seized the capital, Sanaa. President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi fled the capital first to Aden, and after the Houthis entered that city on March 25, he fled the country.
A coalition led by Saudi Arabia, and also including Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, responded to his request and has continued air strikes on Houthi targets from March 26, 2015. Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Sudan also joined the coalition.
According to the United Nations statistics, more than 6,400 people have been killed and more than 30,000 have been wounded in the Yemeni conflict.