Yemen's exiled government has said it expects a deal shortly on a humanitarian ceasefire that would run through the Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday later this month, as the capital Sanaa came under renewed air strikes.
The UN has been pushing for a halt to fighting and air strikes that have killed nearly 3,000 people in Yemen since March when a Saudi-led coalition intervened against Houthi forces in a bid to restore President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
The government, exiled in Riyadh, said talks were focusing on carrying out an April UN resolution calling for the Iranian-allied Houthis to quit cities seized since September and for aid supplies to be sent to stricken Yemeni civilians.
"We are now in consultations for guarantees to ensure the success of the truce," Hadi spokesman Rajeh Badi said.
"The mechanism we presented to implement Resolution 2216 demanded real guarantees to ensure aid is delivered to those who need it," he said, noting that talks were under way to "lift the deliberate siege on Aden, Taiz, Lahj and Dhalea".
Major cities in central and southern Yemen have been racked by heavy fighting between the Houthis and a patchwork of military, regional and tribal forces allied with Hadi.
Badi said a sought-after "humanitarian pause" would last through the end of the three-day Eid, due to start on July 17.
The Houthis have also signalled readiness to honour a truce.
Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdul Salam last week said in a Facebook post he had discussed the matter with UN Yemen envoy Ould Cheikh Ahmed in Muscat, Oman ,on Friday. Mr Cheikh Ahmed flew to Sanaa on Sunday for talks with the Houthis.
The UN last week designated the war in Yemen as a Level 3 humanitarian crisis, its most severe category, and the US and the EU have endorsed calls for a humanitarian suspension of hostilities.
On Friday, the UN alerted aid groups that a truce could start soon and advised them to be ready to start shipping aid. The UN engineered a five-day humanitarian ceasefire in May but aid groups said it did not last long enough to cover all of Yemen's needs.
In Sanaa, witnesses said several people were killed in Saudi-led air raids late on Sunday that wrecked the headquarters of the General People's Congress, the party of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Mr Saleh retains the loyalty of major units of the Yemeni military and is an ally of the Houthis.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article