Prisoner Swap Takes Place as Yemenis, Saudis Hold Talks in Border Area

Friday 11 March 2016

Prisoner Swap Takes Place as Yemenis, Saudis Hold Talks in Border Area

Yemeni sources denied as not accurate reports which said that Ansarullah delegation went to Riyadh for talks with the Saudi regime over its brutal aggression against the Arab impoverished country.

However, the sources did not deny that talks had really taken place, noting that they were under the request of Riyadh.

The two sides met in a border area, the sources told al-Manar, noting that Riyadh offered to stop the airstrikes on Sanaa in exchange for that Yemeni army and the popular committees stop their retaliation attacks in the areas across the border with Saudi.

For its part, the Yemeni side refused the Saudi offer, insisting that the aggression should be halted against all the areas across Yemen and not only in Sanaa, the sources added.

In this context, the sources said that the Saudi offer comes as a result for its failure in the battlefield, in addition to the threat posed by Takfiri groups in the south.

Meanwhile, another Yemeni source said that a prisoner swap deal took place between the two sides.

The swap included a Saudi colonel and Yemeni fighters, the source said, noting that the Saudi side recovered dozens of bodies of Saudi soldiers and mercenaries fighting alongside the Saudi-led coalition.

Yemen has been since March 26, 2015 under brutal aggression by Saudi-led coalition.
Thousands have been martyred and injured in the attack, with the vast majority of them are civilians.

Riyadh launched the attack on Yemen in a bid to restore power to fugitive president Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi who is a close ally to Saudi Arabia.

However, Yemeni army, backed by the committees has been engaged in battles with Saudi-led mercenaries and Hadi’s militias in several areas across the country.