Saudi-led coalition lifts import restrictions in south Yemen
The Saudi-backed government says commercial ships will be allowed to dock directly at southern ports, including Aden.
A Saudi Arabian-led military coalition has lifted eight-year-old import restrictions on Yemen’s southern ports as steps towards peace continue.
The announcement signals progress in peace talks with the Houthi rebel group in the north and follows the easing of restrictions on commercial goods entering the Houthi-held western port of Hodeidah, the country’s main seaport.
It comes as Yemen’s warring factions work to restore an expired United Nations-brokered ceasefire.
The Saudi-backed government in the south said in a statement late Thursday that commercial ships would be allowed to dock directly at southern ports, including Aden, and all goods, with few exceptions, would be cleared.
Abu Bakr Adeed, deputy head of Yemen’s Chambers of Commerce, said ships would not have to stop at the Saudi Red Sea port of Jeddah for security checks for the first time since Yemen’s Saudi-led coalition intervened in 2015.
Adeed said more than 500 types of goods, including fertilizers and batteries, would be allowed back to Yemen through southern ports after being removed from a list of banned products.
There was no immediate response from the Saudi government.
The moves to increase the flow of goods to ports across the country appear to be indicative of progress in direct talks between Saudi Arabia and the Iran-aligned Houthi movement, which are paralleling the United Nations peace effort.
The Houthis, who removed the internationally recognized government from the capital Sanaa in late 2014, are de facto authorities in northern Yemen and say they are fighting against a corrupt system and foreign aggression.
The conflict is widely seen in the region as a proxy war between rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran. Both nations recently agreed to mend relations broken in 2016 in a bid to bolster peace efforts in Yemen.
Saudi-Houthi talks focus on a full reopening of Houthi-controlled ports and Sanaa airport, the payment of wages for officials and a timeline for non-Yemeni troops to leave the country, sources say.
Since 2015, the Saudi-led coalition had imposed severe restrictions on the flow of goods to import-dependent Yemen, where war has devastated the economy and contributed to what the United Nations has called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.