New U.N. envoy lands in Yemen capital ahead of truce

The newly appointed U.N. envoy to Yemen arrived in the militia-held capital Sanaa on Tuesday, hours before the scheduled start of a five-day ceasefire, an airport official said.

Mauritanian diplomat Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, who was appointed in late April, toured Gulf countries that have waged a more than six week air war against the rebels before travelling to Sanaa.

The ceasefire was scheduled to enter effect at 11:00 pm (2000 GMT).

The envoy said he would hold talks on restarting the political dialogue that collapsed when President Abdrabbu Mansour Hadi escaped from the capital in February.

“We are convinced that dialogue is the only way to solve the Yemeni problem,” the militia-controlled Saba news agency quoted him as saying.

A Saudi-led coalition launched air strikes on the militia and allied renegade army units on March 26 as they closed in on Hadi’s last refuge in the southern port city of Aden prompting him to flee to Riyadh.