MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th January, 2019) UN Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths praised in an interview with Sputnik Russia's role in the Yemeni crisis settlement, claiming that all the parties to the conflict were listening to it.
Griffiths commended his "close and continuous" contacts with officials working in the Russian Embassy in Yemen, particularly with Russian Ambassador to Yemen Vladimir Dedushkin. He said that Dedushkin, along with all other ambassadors from the UN Security Council member states, had helped the Yemeni warring parties to achieve such an agreement during their talks in Sweden in December that the council would support.
"So Russia is a full part of the process, and Vladimir [Dedushin] is a very active ambassador, which is extremely welcome ... Russia is listened to by all parties, and that gives it a very special role, that's why for me as a UN envoy, it's very important to come here to meet the Russian officials," Griffiths said, emphasizing that the Yemeni-Russian partnership made a "huge difference."
Griffiths voiced belief that the Yemeni conflict was not a "minor local" one, since the country was the scene of "the biggest humanitarian problem in the world." The envoy emphasized that Yemen was a "strategically important" country in terms of regional stability.
"My Primary role, of course, [is] to make sure the Yemenis ... make the decision to end this war ... and secondly that the diplomacy � of Russia and others � is marshaling in the most useful way ... So, diplomacy and mediation have to work in sync of each other," Griffiths said.
According to Griffiths, parties involved in the crisis settlement need to make sure that the sides of the conflict receive support when they are making decisions.
"The Security Council is united, and that it extremely important, because what diplomacy can do, what [Security Council] member states can do � Russia included � is to make sure that the parties are supported when they make an agreement. For example the [UN] monitors that we want to deploy, that's a Security Council decision. And you know, we all notice, when the Security Council makes a decision ... the parties particularly do," Griffiths said.
In December, the UN-mediated discussions in Sweden between Yemen's warring parties concluded with an agreement to cease hostilities in and withdraw forces from the port of Al Hudaydah. The parties also agreed to create a UN-chaired monitoring committee in addition to establishing humanitarian corridors to the city of Taizz, as well as exchange more than 4,000 prisoners of war.
Earlier in the day, Griffiths met with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin in Moscow to discuss the situation in Yemen with a focus on perspectives for the Stockholm agreement implementation.
