Yemen Peace Talks 'Pushed Back to Year End': UN

TEHRAN (IQNA) – The United Nation's envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths, is no longer aiming to convene the country's warring parties for peace talks this month and will instead try to bring them together by the end of the year, according to a UN spokesperson.

Addressing reporters on Thursday, UN spokesperson Farhan Haq said Griffiths' goal was to hold consultations before the end of the year.

"There [are] always different challenges to bringing the parties together," Haq said, Al Jazeera reported.

"What we're trying to do is clear up any issues so that we can get a successful round of talks as soon as possible."

Griffiths, who is due to brief the Security Council on November 16, is trying to salvage the peace talks that collapsed in September.

He said in a statement last week that he hoped to bring the parties to the negotiating table within a month.

Yemen’s defenseless people have been under massive attacks by the Saudi-led coalition for more than three-and-a-half years.

Since March 2015, Saudi Arabia and some of its Arab allies have been carrying out deadly airstrikes against the Houthi Ansarullah movement in an attempt to restore power to fugitive former president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh.

The Yemeni Ministry of Human Rights announced in a statement on March 25 that the war had left 600,000 civilians dead and injured until then. The war and the accompanying blockade have also caused famine across Yemen.