Lieutenant General Abhijit Guha of India has commenced his mission as head of United Nations Mission to Support the Hodeidah Agreement (UNMHA), announced United Nations Special Envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths.
He will succeed Lieutenant General Michael Lollesgaard, amid the shrinking possibility of implementing the Stockholm Agreement that goes 10 months back between the legitimate government and the Iranian-supported Houthi group.
Griffiths tweeted welcoming the Lieutenant General, saying that he looks forward to cooperating with him.
Guha is the third head of UNMHA since Stockholm Agreement, signed in December.
Redeployment Coordination Committee (RCC) for Yemen managed to let the two parties meet in six rounds of talks for the sake of implementing the agreement. However, it achieved no breakthrough except for the fragile truce that concurred with thousands of breaches.
The UN announced, last month, appointing Guha after the conclusion of Lollesgaard's term. There are hopes that he succeeds in resuming the agreement’s implementation, fixing the ceasefire, completing the second phase of redeployment, and achieving a breakthrough in the most complex issues such as security, resources, and local authority.
Despite Houthis' claims that they finished more than 90 percent of their obligations related to the Hodeidah agreement, the legitimate government affirmed that the withdrawal of the group from three ports of Hodeidah was fictitious.
The local authority, local security forces, and the ports’ resources are the main three topics hindering any tangible progress to implement Hodeidah agreement.
Yemeni Foreign Minister Mohammad al-Hadrami stressed earlier the government’s keenness to achieve peace based on the three references – he also affirmed to Griffiths in their most recent meeting that moving to political consultations regarding the comprehensive settlement with Houthis is hinged to the implementation of the Stockholm Agreement.
Hadrami called on the international community to pressure Houthis to implement it, saying that the government doesn’t expect those who didn’t respect earlier agreements to abide by the coming ones.
