News - Yemen: The date for the entry into force of President Mahdi Al-Mashat's initiative and its entry into force will be announced, an official source at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed on Saturday.

According to Saba News Agency, the source said that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will announce at a later time the date for the entry into force of the President's initiative.

Yemen’s President Mahdi Al-Mashat has announced a voluntary and unilateral three-day pause in retaliatory strikes against targets in Saudi Arabia.

Al-Mashat said on Saturday that in line with the decision, Yemeni forces will stop all missile and drone strikes against Saudi Arabia for the stated period.

“The ceasefire will be observed across all ground, aerial, and naval fronts for three days,” the President said on Saturday.

Yemen is prepared to “make the ceasefire permanent” if Saudi Arabia stops its attacks against Yemen and lifts the blockade of the country, takes all of foreign forces out of Yemeni soil and waters, and stops supporting local militants, Mashat noted.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Mashat said Yemen is ready to release all of the Saudi-led coalition’s prisoners of war, including the brother of former Yemeni president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, “in exchange for the freedom of all of our prisoners.”

He urged the United Nations’ special envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, to contribute to the prisoner exchange by laying the groundwork and preparing the agreements that the process entails.

“We seek peace and demand our enemies consider it a sacred issue,” Mashat said, adding, "We expect the coalition of aggressors to end all measures that would block the path to peace."

He noted that imposing a blockade on the country and seizing fuel-carrying ships in addition to depriving the Yemeni nation of its most primary rights are all measures, which are at odds with peace and confidence building.

“We consider the blockade [of Yemen by the Saudi-led coalition] as the main factor that has prolonged the war and blocked the path to peace and consider the coalition and the international community responsible for it,” he noted.
A Saudi-led coalition has been waging a devastating war against Yemen since March 2015 with the aim of reinstating the country’s former Riyadh-allied officials.

The war has stopped short of its goals while killing thousands of Yemenis in the process and turning the entire Yemen into the scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Back in 2019, the two sides entered an agreement in Stockholm, Sweden to observe a ceasefire over the coastal province of al-Hodeidah, which receives the bulk of Yemen’s imports.

The US-Saudi aggression, however, never stopped bombarding the province, and keeps confiscating the vessels that arrive there carrying direly-needed fuel supplies.