As part of the UN-brokered agreement unveiled on Monday, the Houthis are set to release several Yemeni political leaders with close ties to Yemen’s internationally recognised government.
Yazidi Shiite militias captured Mohammed Qahtan, a leader of the Sunni Islamist Islah party, more than a decade ago, at the start of Yemen’s devastating ongoing civil war.
Over the weekend, UN special envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg reportedly met in Oman with representatives of the Houthis and the Riyadh-based Presidential Leadership Council as part of talks on a major prisoner swap.
United Nations Mediation
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric confirmed on Monday that a potential deal was underway, asserting that any potential exchange would be carried out in accordance with the Stockholm Agreement.
The Stockholm Agreement, signed in 2018, provides Yemen’s warring parties with a diplomatic and technical framework for a prisoner exchange.
Dujarric said he plans to publish a full list of all those involved, as well as other details about Kahtan’s release, in the coming weeks.
Speaking after the Oman meeting, Grundberg also called on the Houthis to release 45 UN staff, diplomats and NGO workers in Yemen who remain imprisoned by the militia.
At least 150,000 people have been killed in Yemen’s civil war, according to the latest UN estimates, and despite years of military intervention led by neighboring Saudi Arabia on behalf of Yemen’s internationally recognized government, the Iran-backed Houthis remain in control of the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, and much of the country’s populated northwest.
