A malnourished 4-year girl sits on a bed as she waits to be weighed while she receives treatment at a malnutrition department in a hospital in Sanaa, Yemen, on Sept. 2, 2018. Millions of people in the war-torn Yemen are unable to secure one meal a day. (Xinhua/Mohammed Mohammed)
UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 5 (Xinhua) -- The members of the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday expressed their full support for the UN-led political process in Yemen.
In a statement, they expressed their full support for the efforts of the special envoy of the secretary-general "to bring about a political settlement."
"The members of the Security Council reiterated that there can only be a political solution to the conflict in Yemen. They reiterated their call for full implementation of Security Council resolutions and statements, including resolution 2216 (2015)," said the statement.
It also said that members of the Security Council welcomed the UN-led consultations with representatives from the Yemeni parties scheduled for Sept. 6 in Geneva. "These initial consultations will be a necessary and important step towards the comprehensive and inclusive security and political agreements that will be required to resolve the conflict, improve the humanitarian situation, and bring peace, prosperity and security to all Yemenis."
"On the eve of the Geneva consultations, the members of the Security Council urged the Yemeni parties to seize this opportunity to de-escalate tensions and to participate fully, constructively and in good faith in order to build confidence between them and take a first step towards ending a conflict that has brought severe pain and humanitarian suffering to the Yemeni people," said the statement.
"They called on the international community, including regional neighbors, to support actively these consultations," it said.
Yemen's warring parties are to meet in Geneva on Thursday for a new round of peace talks. They are the first public meetings between the government of Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi and Yemen's powerful Houthi rebels since 2016, when 108 days of negotiations in Kuwait failed to broker a power-sharing deal.
The talks, overseen by UN envoy Martin Griffiths, are aimed at charting a path towards reviving formal UN-backed negotiations.