The UN-brokered talks between Sanaa-based Yemeni revolutionaries and Saudi-backed exiled government officials over prisoner exchange have failed, the office of UN Yemen Envoy Martin Griffiths said.

“Although the parties did not agree to releases during this round of talks, they committed to keep discussing the parameters of a future expanded release operation,” the office of Griffiths said Sunday.

This round of prisoner swap talks commenced in Jordan last month with the aim of freeing a total of 300 prisoners, both from the Yemeni army and its allied fighters from Popular Committees and those militiamen loyal to Yemen’s fugitive president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, whose brother is also among the prisoners.

Abdul Qader al-Murtada, head of the Houthis’ prisoner affairs committee, tweeted that the talks failed due to intransigence on the part of Hadi’s representatives and his allies.

The development came as Yemeni allied forces continue with their offensive to take control of Marib from Hadi’s militiamen. The city is Hadi’s last urban stronghold in northern Yemen, which is some 120 km east of the capital Sana’a.

Saudi Arabia, UAE and a number of their regional allies launched a devastating war on Yemen in March 2015 in order to restore power to Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh, and crush the popular Houthi Ansarullah movement.

Yemen’s army and allied popular forces, however, have been since confronting the Saudi-led aggression.

gone from strength to strength against the Saudi-led invaders, leaving the so-called military coalition forces bogged down in Yemen.

Source: Iranian media