Yemen warring sides to release 2,700 prisoners

Yemen’s internationally recognised Government and the Iran-backed Houthi group have reached an agreement to free around 2,700 detainees held throughout the war in Yemen, according to Saudi and Houthi officials. Saudi Ambassador Mohamed Al-Jabir said in a statement on X that the agreement was signed under the supervision of the Office of the UN Special Envoy for Yemen and the International Committee of the Red Cross, “which will enable all detainees to return to their families.” The prisoners would include Saudi and Sudanese nationals, according to Abdelkader al-Murtada, the Houthi head of the National Committee for Prisoners’ Affairs and Mohamed Abdusalam, a Houthi spokesperson.

Esmail Baghaei said in his weekly briefing. He said the meeting will be held at the deputy ministerial level. Under a 2015 deal designed to cap Iran’s nuclear activities, Iran agreed to tough restrictions on its international programme in exchange for an easing of sanctions.  The deal began to unravel in 2018, when the United States pulled out of it and began to reimpose certain sanctions.  European countries have recently threatened to trigger the 2015 deal’s “snapback” mechanism, which would allow sanctions to be reimposed in the case of non-compliance by Tehran.

German Foreign Ministry spokesperson Martin Giese, asked who Germany will send to the talks and what its expectations are, said that “the talks are taking place at expert level”.  “Iran must never come into possession of a nuclear weapon,” so Germany, France and Britain are “continuing to work. At high pressure on a sustainable and verifiable diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear programme,” he said.