Riyadh (Debriefer) - The Yemeni internationally-recognized government on Sunday praised the UN special envoy to Yemen and the International Committee of Red Cross for the great efforts they exerted to reach a phased deal on prisoner swap declared earlier on Sunday.
The prisoner swap is a pure humanitarian issue, the Yemeni foreign minister said, "so the legitimate government was determined to apply all the pact's provisions without selectivity or fragmentation."
Most of the detainees the government demanded to be released "are civilians, activists and forcibly disappeared, as well as the four [people] stated in UNSC resolutions," Mohamed al-Hadhrami added.
UNSC resolutions provided for the release of General Mahmoud al-Sobaihi (former defense minister), General Nasser Mansour Hadi (brother of Yemen's president), General Faisal Rajab and Mohamed Qahtan.
FM Hadhrami called for the new deal and next phase to be implemented immediately, without further details on the next round of talks, its timing or its venue.
Earlier on Saturday, the UN announced the pact signed between the Yemeni UN-recognized government and Houthi group in Geneva, where they agreed to release 1,081 prisoners, the largest ever since the war outbreak in 2015.
Under the UN-ICRC-brokered pact, 681 Houthi prisoners would be freed in exchange for the release of 381 government troops, 15 Saudis and 4 Sudanese, according to firsthand sources.
