Yemen rivals discuss possible prisoner swap in Jordan, Red Cross says

Almost 900 prisoners were released by the warring sides in April

Prisoners released unilaterally by Saudi Arabia arrive in Sanaa following a prisoner swap in April. Reuters

Yemen's government and Iran-backed Houthi rebels are reportedly locked in talks in Jordan to set the ground for a possible prisoner exchange, according to the Red Cross.

The negotiations, which began on Friday in Amman, are overseen by the office of the UN special envoy to Yemen and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), said Jessica Moussan, ICRC's media adviser for the Middle East.

They are meeting "together with... parties to the conflict in Yemen to address issues pertaining to negotiations on a future release operation", she told AFP on Sunday.

The talks signal renewed hopes for an end to the conflict just two months after almost 900 prisoners were exchanged between the warring parties.

Speaking ahead of the exchange in April, the UN envoy to Yemen said the country had its best chance for a peace deal since the civil war started more than eight years ago, although much work remained to be done.

Yemen's conflict began in 2014 when the Houthis seized the capital Sanaa, prompting a Saudi-led coalition to intervene the following year to support the internationally-recognised government.

The fighting has since killed hundreds of thousands of people directly or indirectly and created what the United Nations calls one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.

On Friday, the UN envoy's office said the Amman talks were a follow-up to an agreement stuck by the two sides in Stockholm five years ago.

The deal called for the "release all prisoners, detainees, missing persons, arbitrarily detained and forcibly disappeared persons, and those under house arrest", held in connection with Yemen's nearly decade-long conflict, "without any exceptions or conditions".

Several prominent figures were released from Houthi detention during the prisoner swaps in April, including Nasser Mansur Hadi, brother to Yemen's former president Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, former defence minister Mahmoud Al Subaihi, and Mohammad Abdullah Saleh, brother of Yemen's vice president Tareq Mohammad Abdullah Saleh.

Ms Moussan said the ICRC was engaged with both sides to secure a prisoner swap in line with the initial prisoner swap deal agreed in Switzerland in March.

That agreement came after regional powerhouses Iran and Saudi Arabia announced they were resuming ties after a seven-year rupture, in a landmark Chinese-brokered rapprochement that has shifted regional relations.

Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Faisal Bin Farhan travelled to Iran this weekend, holding "positive talks" with Tehran leaders including President Ebrahim Raisi.

A six-month truce brokered by the United Nations expired in October last year, but fighting has largely remained on hold.

Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Yemen, Mohammed Al Jaber, travelled to Sanaa a week before the prisoner exchange as part of a plan to revive the peace deal.

Although no deal was struck, Mr Al Jaber told AFP the warring parties were "serious" about ending the conflict, which the United Nations says has displaced 4.5 million Yemenis internally and pushed more than two-thirds of the population into poverty.

However, experts have previously told The National there will be no "quick-fix" to the conflict.

"The country requires a comprehensive, multi-track strategy to address the extensive legacy of war and identify viable solutions for the future," Ahmed Nagi, senior Yemen analyst at the International Crisis Group said in April.

UN special envoy Hans Grundberg told an international forum in The Hague over the past week that "the road to peace is going to be long and difficult."