Islah’s conditions threaten to blow up understandings about prisoners file
SANAA, June 05 (YPA) – After the completion of the prisoner exchange deal between Sanaa and the coalition in mid-April, the Yemenis were optimistic that there would be a major breakthrough in the prisoner file and that this file would be finally resolved.
However, as soon as the deal was completed, new obstacles appeared in front of the completion of the prisoner deals agreed upon between Sanaa and the coalition, including the coalition factions in Marib obstructing visits to the captives’ prisons, which were supposed to take place on the 20th of last May.
Today, after thwarting the prison visits, Hadi Al-Haig, a leader in the Islah Party and a head of the Commission of Prisoners and Detainees in the coalition-backed government, announced that visit of Mohammad Qahtan, a senior leader in the party, should be a condition for the committee’s participation in any new round of discussions about the prisoners.
Islah’s conditions threaten to blow up understandings about prisoners file
Al-Haig’s statements came after the coalition-backed factions in Marib rejected an offer made by Sanaa to disclose the fate of Qahtan in return for revealing the fate of its war prisoners inside the Islah-run prisons, confirming the statements of the head of the Prisoners’ Committee of Sanaa Abdul Qadir Al-Mortada, who said that the coalition has used Mohammad Qahtan as a pretext to thwart understandings about prisoners.
Observers emphasized that the Islah party’s submission of these conditions does not stem from concern for Qahtan as much as it aims to obstruct the efforts made by the United Nations to advance the prisoners’ file and to exploit the Qahtan’s file for media bidding, in addition to put obstacles in the way of implementing any new deals for prisoners between two sides.
According to the observers, the file of the prisoners, after the conditions presented by Hadi al-Haig, entered a crossroads, as these conditions could lead to torpedoing the understandings about the prisoners’ file between Sanaa and the coalition, and returning to square one.
The observers stressed the United Nations’ pressure on the Islah Party to stop putting obstacles and implementing their commitments is the dependent role, especially Sanaa has expressed its willingness more than once to end this file and to enter into a comprehensive exchange deal all for all.
AA