UN envoy, Yemeni President meet in Riyadh

Sanaa, Jan 7 (IANS) UN Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths met with President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, state media reported here.During the meeting on Wednesday, they discussed a UN-brokered plan to push forward peace in Yemen, Xinhua news agency quoted the state media report as saying.Griffiths would fly to Yemen's southern port city of Aden in the coming days for meetings with Hadi's government, it added.The UN envoy recently proposed an agreement between the Yemeni government and the Houthi rebels to enable resumption of political talks to end civil war.Yemen has been mired in a civil war since late 2014, when the Iran-backed Houthi rebels seized control of several northern provinces and forced the internationally-recognized government of Hadi out of the capital Sanaa.The six-year-old war has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced 4 million and pushed Yemen to the brink of starvation.
--IANS ksk/