An official in the Yemeni Houthi group said, on Saturday, that the group had received 13 detainees released by Saudi Arabia in exchange for the release of a Saudi detainee earlier, before a broader exchange agreed upon by the warring parties.
The head of the group’s prisoners’ affairs committee, Abdul Qadir al-Murtada, said on Twitter that the released detainees had arrived in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, where the areas are controlled by the Iran-aligned Houthi group, which has been fighting the Saudi-led military coalition since 2015.
Al-Murtada revealed in a second tweet that the released prisoners from Saudi prisons “are part of the deal agreed upon by the United Nations.”
“Next Thursday, God willing, we will complete the rest of the steps with the full implementation of the deal,” he said.
Upon publishing the news, Reuters said that it had requested comment from the Saudi government’s media office, but did not receive it.
Earlier, on Saturday, an Omani delegation began a visit to Sana’a to hold talks with the Houthis as part of a mediation aimed at reaching a new truce in Yemen and reviving the peace process after the Saudi-Iranian rapprochement, Yemeni official sources told AFP.
United Nations officials and experts on Yemeni affairs believe that the agreement of Tehran and Riyadh, which support conflicting parties in Yemen mired in war, to resume diplomatic relations, may push for a political solution in the poorest country of the Arabian Peninsula.
The war in Yemen since 2014 has killed hundreds of thousands directly and indirectly, with most of the population relying on aid to survive.
Since 2014, Saudi Arabia has led a military coalition that supports the internationally recognized Yemeni government, while Iran supports the Houthi rebels who took control of the capital in 2014.
The announcement last month of a rapprochement agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the two most important regional powers in the Gulf that are on opposite sides of most Middle East files, revived the optimism that began last year to reach a truce.
