The U.N. envoy for Yemen said Monday the expected timeline for a truce in the flashpoint city of Hodeida and a prisoner swap between warring parties had been pushed back.
Envoy Martin Griffiths hosted hard-won peace talks between the Yemeni government and Houthi rebels in Sweden last month.
The two parties agreed at the talks to a mass prisoner swap and an ambitious cease-fire pact in Hodeida, the Red Sea city home to the impoverished country's most valuable port.
Griffiths, who arrived Monday in Sanaa on his third trip to Yemen this month, said there had been "changes in timelines" for both deals.
"That momentum is still there, even if we have seen the timelines for implementation extended, both in Hodeida and with regard to the prisoner exchange agreement," he told Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat.
"Yet such changes in timelines are expected, in light of the facts that the timelines were rather ambitious and we are dealing with a complex situation on the ground."
Griffiths also confirmed reports retired Dutch general Patrick Cammaert, who heads a monitoring team tasked with overseeing the Hodeida truce, would be replaced. Cammaert arrived Saturday in Yemen.
"General Cammaert's plan was to stay in Yemen for a rather short period of time to ... lay the ground for establishing the Hodeida mission," he said.
"All the speculations about other reasons for General Patrick's departure are not accurate."
The Houthis, who control Hodeida, have accused Cammaert of not being up to the task and of pursuing "other agendas".
AFP
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