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Russia hopes nationwide ceasefire will be established in Yemen

Russia's envoy said Moscow was calling for further joint efforts in Yemen’s interests

UNITED NATIONS, December 14. /TASS/. Russia is convinced that the key task after the intra-Yemeni consultations in Sweden is to reach a countrywide ceasefire in Yemen, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya said on Friday.

"We would like to believe that in the light of the agreements reached in Stockholm we are entering a new phase in the settlement of the Yemeni conflict," he said at a UN Security Council meeting. "We hope our further joint efforts will make it possible to reach a countrywide truce in the country and to help millions of Yemenis who are badly in need of this or that type of assistance."

"The Rubicon we have approached as a result of the process launched in Yemen is to be crossed," he stressed. "We believe that the top priority task now is to help establish ceasefire and withdraw weapons from the port and city of Hodeida."

"We call for further joint efforts in Yemen’s interests," he added.

Stockholm hosted consultations on settling the conflict in Yemen from December 6 through 13. The parties, which met for the first time over that past 30 months, have signed an agreement on prisoner exchange and exchanged lists of prisoners subject to the swap. The process is expected to be over before January 20, 2019, if there are no more disagreements between the parties.

Apart from that, the Yemeni government and the Ansar Allah (Houthi) rebel movement reached an agreement on cessation of hostilities in the port of Hodeida. However they failed to reach accord on issues of the operation of the airport in Sanaa and consolidation of the national bank.

Armed confrontation between government forces and Ansar Allah groups has been going on in Yemen since August 2014, reaching the most active phase in March 2015 after the Saudi-led coalition invaded the country. According to Yemen’s Legal Center for Rights and Development, more than 10,000 civilians, including almost 2,400 children and about 2,000 women, have been killed in the country since the spring of 2015. According to the United Nations, the counry is facing the world’s most acute food crisis.

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