UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said yesterday he was ready to meet Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman (MbS) to advance diplomatic efforts to end the war in Yemen.
Guterres will travel later to Buenos Aires to attend the G20 summit that will see the prince make a first major appearance on the world stage since the brutal killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The UN chief told reporters “there is a chance” that talks on ending the war in Yemen could begin in early December in Sweden and that this was “an extremely important objective.”
“I am ready to discuss it with the crown prince or with any Saudi official because I believe it is a very important objective at the present moment,” said Guterres.
The UN chief’s readiness to hold talks with the Saudi leader came amid speculation that the 33-year-old prince could be treated as a pariah at the G20 over the Khashoggi murder, which triggered a global outcry.
“We are at a very crucial moment in relation to Yemen,” said Guterres who added that he had spoken earlier in the day to his UN peace envoy Martin Griffiths. “I believe there is a chance to be able to start effective negotiations in Sweden early in December, but we are not yet there.”
Griffiths is hoping to bring the Saudi-backed government and the Houthi rebels to Sweden for negotiations that could begin as early as December 3, according to UN diplomats. The war has left millions on the brink of starvation and unleashed what the United Nations has described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
Saudi Arabia has faced fresh calls to end the war in Yemen following the murder of Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Guterres, who has called for a thorough and transparent investigation of Khashoggi’s murder, said he would not shy away from reiterating his position in a private conversation with the prince. “I have never a problem in saying publicly and privately the same thing,” he said.
ROAD TO HODEIDAH UNDER THREAT
Only one road remains open to the vital Yemeni port of Hodeidah, which has now been entirely encircled by the Saudi-led military coalition, an aid worker said.
Fierce clashes have eased off around the Red Sea port but there is intense international concern over its fate as millions of Yemenis remain on the verge of starvation.
Yemen’s Saudi-backed government had been waging a fierce offensive to retake the city from Iran-backed Houthi rebels. Suze van Meegen of the Norwegian Refugee Council said cutting off the one remaining road to Hodeidah would spell disaster for 22mn people relying on imports passing through the port.
“As of yesterday, Hodeidah has been entirely encircled by troops,” van Meegen, an advocacy advisor based in Yemen for 18 months, told reporters on a trip to Paris. The one remaining access road, to the north “is 60 kilometres longer than any other road that we would use to enter the city”, making pick-ups harder for aid groups, she said.
If it is cut off, there will be “no means by which to get anything to up to 22mn Yemenis that depend on what is coming through that port”.
Van Meegen said she believed the road would be kept open ahead of peace talks expected to take place in Stockholm in December.
But “if there is a negative outcome from those peace talks...and things escalate, the Saudi and Emirate coalition could cut that supply road off within two hours,” she warned.
Given that about 70% of Yemen’s imports pass through the port, such a situation would prove disastrous, she said. “Humanitarian aid is not the solution – we cannot feed 29.3mn people, the entire population of Yemen,” van Meegen said.
“We need a majority of Yemenis to be able to buy their food, so we can assist the people in the most desperate need.”
UN agencies say 14mn Yemenis are at risk of starvation.Operations at Hodeidaj’s port have fallen by nearly 50%over the past two weeks, the UN 
said on Tuesday.


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