A man sits by a wounded Houthi rebel in an ambulance at the Sanaa International Airport in Sanaa, Yemen, on Dec. 3, 2018. The Saudi-led coalition allowed on Monday the evacuation of 50 wounded Houthi rebels to Oman for further medical treatment, the coalition spokesman said.(Xinhua/Mohammed Mohammed)
SANAA, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- The Saudi-led coalition allowed on Monday the evacuation of 50 wounded Houthi rebels to Oman for further medical treatment, the coalition spokesman said.
The move came upon a "request of UN Special Envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths to facilitate the evacuation to Muscat for humanitarian reasons," spokesman of the coalition forces Col. Turki al-Maliki was quoted by Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television as saying.
"The facilitation comes within the confidence-building framework between the Yemeni parties to prepare for the upcoming peace talks in Sweden," he said in a press conference in Riyadh, the Saudi Arabia capital.
Maliki said the injured rebels will be transported on Monday by a commercial aircraft belonging to the United Nations.
He said three Yemeni doctors and a United Nations doctor will accompany the injured militants to Muscat, the capital city of Oman.
The evacuation of Houthi injured fighters was one of the reasons behind the collapse of previous round of talks in Geneva in September.
The apparent breakthrough would pave the way for fresh negotiations in Sweden in next few days.
Meanwhile, Houthi negotiating delegation has received guarantees from the United Nations for a safe depart and return to Sanaa, according to a Houthi official who asked not to be named.
On Nov. 13, the British Foreign Office said in a statement that its foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt has given an "upbeat assessment" of the chances of political talks and a cease-fire in the four-year Yemen civil war after his visit to Riyadh ended with Saudi Arabia agreeing to allow the evaluation of some wounded Houthi rebels.
Saudi Arabia is leading the Arab military coalition that intervened in Yemen in March 2015 to support the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after the Houthi rebels forced him into exile.
