(Reuters) – Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement made a new offer to the United Nations that includes the release of 200 prisoners from each of the warring parties in Yemen before Muslim’s Eid al-Fitr, Al-Masirah TV said on Sunday citing the head of the Houthis’ prisoner affairs committee, Abdul Qader al-Murtada.
Murtada said the reason for the new offer is the delay in the implementation of a prisoner swap agreement, adding the group is waiting for a response of the Saudi-led coalition, which it hopes will be positive.
Last month, Yemen’s warring parties discussed a possible prisoner swap which could see hundreds of detainees freed, including 16 Saudi nationals and a brother of the Yemeni former President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, but no final agreement had been reached since.
Murtada has said that the deal, under the auspices of the United Nations, could free 1,400 Houthi prisoners in return for 823 coalition prisoners, including 16 Saudis and three Sudanese prisoners.
Earlier this month, the warring sides in Yemen’s seven-year conflict agreed to a nationwide truce for the first time in years, under a U.N.-brokered deal.
(Reporting by Moataz Mohamed; Editing by Diane Craft)
