UN envoy to Yemen meets Houthi leader ahead of peace talks

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The visiting United Nations Envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths met on Thursday the Houthi rebel leader Abdulmalik al-Houthi, the group's spokesman said. During the meeting, al-Houthi reaffirmed his group's commitment to attending the December peace talks, the rebels' spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam said on his Twitter account.
However, al-Houthi demanded the lift of "the economic blockade imposed on Yemen by the Saudi-led coalition since 2015," and the re-opening of Sanaa International Airport for commercial flights.
He also sought for the transfer of his group's injured fighters abroad for life-saving treatment. Abdulsalam did not specify the place of the meeting or whether it was a face-to-face meeting. There was no comment yet from the UN envoy's office.
A day earlier, Griffiths arrived in the rebel-held capital Sanaa to push for the upcoming peace talks. He has said he would also visit the embattled port city of Hodeidah which remains under the rebels' control.
Hodeidah, the main Red Sea port city which handles 80 percent of Yemen's imports and aid, has witnessed deadly clashes over the past few weeks between the government troops backed by the Saudi-led coalition forces and the Iran-allied Houthi rebels.
The government has been trying to recapture Hodeidah from Houthis who seized it along with much of the country's north in late 2014.
Griffiths urged the UN Security Council on Friday to adopt a humanitarian truce before holding peace talks in Sweden next month.
The fighting has been reduced over the past few days upon international pressure on the rival forces.
The major government offensive against the rebels in Hodeidah has displaced about 445,000 people since July, according to the UN aid agencies.
The previous talks in Geneva collapsed in September after the Houthi delegation did not appear.  

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