The Yemeni government announced that it has suspended its membership in the Hodeidah Redeployment Coordination Committee holding Houthi rebels responsible for the move.
Yemeni Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik has warned that the militias' recent military escalation and recurrent breaches of the UN-sponsored ceasefire in Hodeidah would thwart the Stockholm Agreement.
During a phone conversation he held on Thursday with the head of the government team engaged in the Redeployment Coordination Committee (RCC), Maj. General Mohammed Aidhah, the PM said such violations clearly demonstrate that militia leaders have never seriously sought to achieve peace.
Abdulmalik’s remarks came a day after Yemeni Foreign Minister Mohammad al-Hadhrami made clear, during a meeting with US ambassador to Yemen Christopher Henzel in Riyadh, that the suspension is meant to review the feasibility of the Stockholm Agreement in light of the continued Houthi violations of the deal.
"The government had shown so much patience versus the Houthi maximalist avoidance of the Hodeidah Agreement for one year," the FM said.
Hadhrami called on the UN to assume its responsibility in ensuring the safety of the governmental team involved in implementing the Agreement.
During his phone call with Aidhah, the Yemeni PM inquired about the health of Colonel Mohammed Abdurrab Sharaf Al-Soleihi, a member of the government team that monitors the truce, who was shot by a Houthi sniper while on duty on Wednesday despite having been notified about his movement.
"Shooting Col. Al-Soleihi while on duty is a flagrant breach and serious act that threatens the Stockholm Agreement,” said Abdulmalik.
Under the UN-sponsored deal signed in December 2018 in the Swedish capital, the Iran-backed Houthis are compelled to defuse landmines and to withdraw from Hodeidah’s seaports and open roads from and to the city in exchange for the Yemeni government halting a major military offensive that had reached Hodeidah city.
