The legitimate government in Yemen and Iran-backed Houthi militias have reached an agreement to implement a prisoner swap deal, a week after resuming talks over the issue in Amman, United Nations and Yemeni sources confirmed on Sunday.
“The intermediate agreement should finally lead to the release of all prisoners from both sides,” Yemeni Undersecretary of Ministry of Human Rights Majed Fada'el told Asharq Al-Awsat.
The official thanked Jordan for hosting the two parties and facilitating their efforts to reach this agreement.
Fada’el explained that in its first phase, the swap deal process relies on the exchange of the list of prisoners pending an agreement on the final implementation of the release.
Meanwhile, Yemen's Foreign Minister Mohammed al-Hadhrami thanked the UN Secretary General's Special Envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths and the International Committee of the Red Cross for mediating the swap deal between the government and Houthis.
"The government has all along sought an exchange of all prisoners on both sides, something President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi stresses on," said al-Hadhrami in a statement to the Saba news agency.
A joint statement by Griffiths and the ICRC on the outcome of the third meeting of the prisoner exchange committee said delegates representing the parties to the conflict in Yemen agreed on a detailed plan to complete the first official large-scale exchange of prisoners since the beginning of the conflict.
“This is a step towards the fulfillment of the parties’ commitment to the phased release of all conflict-related detainees according to the Stockholm Agreement,” the statement said.
It added that at the conclusion of a seven-day meeting, Sunday, the parties decided to immediately begin with exchanging the lists for the upcoming release.
“I urge the parties to move forward with the exchange they agreed on today with the utmost sense of urgency. Progress has been too slow on this front. The pain of the thousands awaiting reunion with their loved ones must end,” Griffiths said.
Franz Rauchenstein, the head of the ICRC in Sanaa, said: “Despite ongoing clashes, we saw that the parties have found common humanitarian ground that will allow many detainees to return to their loved ones.”
He said the agreement shows that only the parties themselves have it in their hands to bring about positive and lasting change.
“This is very encouraging and will hopefully lay the ground for further releases in a near future,” Rauchenstein added.
