Hodeidah truce, prisoner swap timelines pushed back: UN

SANAA: The UN envoy for Yemen said Monday the expected timeline for a truce in the flashpoint city of Hodeidah and a prisoner swap between warring parties had been pushed back.
Envoy Martin Griffiths hosted hard-won peace talks between the Saudi-backed Yemeni government and rival Iran-aligned Houthi rebels in Sweden last month.
The two parties, who have been at war for four years, agreed at the talks to a mass prisoner swap and an ambitious cease-fire pact in Hodeidah, the Red Sea city home to the impoverished country’s most valuable port.
Griffiths, who arrived Monday in Sanaa on his third trip to Yemen this month, said there had been “changes in timelines” for both deals.
“That momentum is still there, even if we have seen the timelines for implementation extended, both in Hodeidah and with regard to the prisoner exchange agreement,” he told Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat.
“Yet such changes in timelines are expected, in light of the facts that the timelines were rather ambitious and we are dealing with a complex situation on the ground.”
Griffiths also confirmed reports retired Dutch general Patrick Cammaert, who heads a monitoring team tasked with overseeing the Hodeidah truce, would be replaced. Cammaert arrived Saturday in Yemen.
“General Cammaert’s plan was to stay in Yemen for a rather short period of time to … lay the ground for establishing the Hodeidah mission,” he said.
“All the speculations about other reasons for General Patrick’s departure are not accurate.”
The Houthis, who control Hodeidah, have accused Cammaert of not being up to the task and of pursuing “other agendas.”
Hodeida was for months the main front line in the Yemen war after government forces supported by Saudi Arabia and its allies launched an offensive to capture it in June.
But a precarious calm has largely held in the city since the cease-fire agreement came into force on December 18.
The Hodeidah agreement stipulates a full cease-fire, followed by the withdrawal and redeployment of rival forces from the city — two clauses that have yet to be fulfilled.