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UN Security Council establishes mission to support Hodeidah accord in Yemen

Head of Houthi delegation Mohammed Abdul-Salam and Yemeni Foreign Minister Khaled al-Yaman shake hands next to United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres and Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom
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The United Nations (UN) Security Council has unanimously approved a six-month observer mission to monitor a ceasefire in war-torn Yemen and oversee the redeployment of forces by the warning parties.

The Council resolution approving up to 75 observers to Yemen’s port city of Hodeidah comes after UN-sponsored talks in Sweden in December saw the Iranian-aligned Houthi group and the Saudi-backed Yemen government reached a deal on the port city which serves as the main entry point for goods and aid into the country.

The Council in December authorized an advance monitoring team ahead of this resolution that expands the UN operation into a more substantive one.

The new political undertaking will be known as the UN Mission to support the Hodeidah Agreement. The Yemeni civil war has resulted in the worst humanitarian crisis facing the world today.

UK ambassador & pen-holder on Yemen, Karen Pierce, says the technical resolution concentrates solely on authorisation of a substantive UN monitoring mission to verify what is happening in Hodeida.

“This is a technical resolution which means it’s short, it concentrates solely on the authorisation and the authorisation is a substantive UN monitoring mission that will go into Hodeida to verify what is happening on the ground in the wake of the agreements that were established at Stockholm. So, it’s an important moment. It enables the UN to build up the substantive mission. There’s an interim mission there at the moment under General Patrick Cammaert, as you know.

“As far as the situation on the ground goes, there has been a welcome de-escalation around Hodeida, but there are still provocative acts being carried out particularly by one of the parties. So, it’s very important that those cease and that all the parties continue to operate fully with the UN envoy and we get on with making the Stockholm agreements as water-tight and achievable and getting them implemented as best we can.”

French Ambassador, François Delattre, says that the agreement is important in order to implement Stockholm agreement.

“The adopting of the resolution creating a special political mission in Yemen is indeed a important and necessary step in order to implement the Stockholm agreement. The goal is indeed to build on the current momentum; is to make it irreversible and for that to bring the full weight of the Security Council behind the process.”

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