UAE demands ‘unconditional’ rebel withdrawal from Yemen port

DUBAI: The UAE, a key player in the coalition battling Huthi rebels in Yemen, on Monday warned the insurgents to withdraw unconditionally from the flashpoint port city of Hodeida, after UN peace efforts fizzled.“There can be no conditions in any offers to withdraw,” the United Arab Emirates’ minister of state for foreign affairs Anwar Gargash told a press conference in Dubai.“If the rebels wanted to set conditions, they should have thought of that a year ago... Now is not the time to negotiate.”Huthi rebels have controlled Hodeida, a key entry point for desperately-needed aid, since 2014, when they drove the government out of the capital Sanaa and seized large swathes of the country.Neighbouring Saudi Arabia and its allies — chief among them US-trained UAE troops — intervened in the conflict on the government’s side the following year, sparking what the United Nations has called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

from The News International - World

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