Talks have been taking place since Friday in Amman between the warring parties in Yemen, under the supervision of the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (ICRC), to prepare the ground for a possible prisoner exchange, the ICRC announced on Sunday .

Since 2014, Yemen has been torn apart by war between the Houthis, Shiite rebels aligned with Iran, and pro-government forces, backed by a military alliance led by neighboring Saudi Arabia.

Negotiations in the Jordanian capital are focused on “issues related (…) to the future operation to release” prisoners, Jessica Mushan, spokeswoman for the ICRC, told AFP.

On Friday, the office of the UN special envoy to Yemen announced that it was organizing talks between “the warring parties (…) with a view to the release of further prisoners (…) under the Stockholm agreement, which was concluded five years ago.”

The parties had then committed to “release” without exception “imprisoned, arrested, disappeared, arbitrarily detained and victims of enforced disappearances and house arrest” in the context of the armed conflict.

The ICRC clarified that it is committed “to play the role of a neutral mediator (…) to guarantee that the release process will take place in accordance with international humanitarian law, as accepted by the parties in Switzerland in March 2023”.

The Yemeni government and rebels then signed an agreement in Bern to exchange about 900 prisoners, which was implemented a month later.

The war in Yemen has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, displaced millions more and created one of the worst humanitarian crises on the planet.

But hostilities have generally been suspended following a ceasefire agreement negotiated by the UN a year ago, although it officially expires at the end of October 2022.

In recent months, diplomatic initiatives have raised hopes that peace can be restored to the country, especially after the reconciliation between Iran and Saudi Arabia, which ended seven years of open hostility in the Middle East.

After the thaw in March, Riyadh restored diplomatic relations with Tehran’s ally Syria and intensified its efforts to bring peace to Yemen.

The latest sign of the ongoing de-escalation process: the first commercial flight from the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, to Saudi Arabia took off last Saturday.