UN Envoy Wants Another Expansion of Yemen Truce

With a couple of weeks left before the latest deadline, the Yemen ceasefire has been an almost unconditional success. UN officials are trying to piece together ways to expand the scope of the ceasefire even further, and more importantly extend the end date.

Almost four months in, there have been claims of scores, if not hundreds, of violations. These largely don’t appear to have happened, however, the only really credible report being of a Saudi cross-border attack this weekend.

Years of war haven’t benefited anybody in Yemen, and the UN was hoping to use a truce to get a peace process going. So far there hasn’t been a peace process gaining steam, but there seems no reason to go back to the conflict now, either.

The risk is always that both sides are trying to hold out to get more in a new extension of the truce, and one or the other side might blink and end up restarting the fight.