Today, Saturday, in Geneva, Switzerland, the seventh meeting of the supervisory committee for the implementation of the prisoner exchange agreement began between representatives of the Yemeni government and the Houthi group, under the supervision of the Office of the United Nations Special Envoy to Yemen and with the participation of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The UN envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, said - in a statement - that he hopes that the parties will be willing to engage in serious and frank discussions to agree to release as many detainees as possible.
Grundberg added that with the month of Ramadan approaching, the Yemeni parties should fulfill what they agreed to commit to towards the thousands of Yemeni families who have been waiting for their loved ones to return for a long time.
The new talks are scheduled to last 11 days.
Previous rounds were held in the Jordanian capital, Amman.
The last exchange of detainees between the Yemeni government and the Houthis took place in October 2020, during which the two sides released 1,056 people, according to the Red Cross.
A year ago, the two parties signed an agreement under the auspices of the United Nations to exchange 2,200 detainees, but their release stalled amid mutual accusations of obstructing the process.
During the talks that took place in Stockholm, Sweden, in 2018, and resulted in a peace agreement, the Yemeni government and the Houthis submitted lists of more than 15,000 people detained by both sides.