Give peace a chance

There is more to the recently adopted UN Security Council Resolution 2451 on Yemen than meets the eye.

For starters, the resolution endorsed the much-celebrated Stockholm Agreement, which was reached on December 13 between the government of Yemen and the Houthi rebels. The agreement calls for a truce in the fighting in and around the port city of Hodeida, the opening of routes for humanitarian assistance to the beleaguered people and the withdrawal of armies of both sides from the city and its environs. The UN resolution gave a breather for the warring parties to reconsider their futile four-year fighting and give peace a chance.

Not less important was the resolution's authorisation for the deployment of a UN team to monitor the full implementation, in good faith, of the provisions of Resolution 2451. If this resolution does not bring the two sides to their senses, one does not know what would.

Now, and for the first time, the warring parties, at loggerheads for so long over the fate of their country, have a chance to bring their conflict to a peaceful end. With UN monitors now deployed on the ground, neither side can afford to violate the terms of the ceasefire resolution, as the watchful eyes of the international community are turned on them.

The war in Yemen has to end one way or another, after almost four years of bloodshed and destruction that brought the suffering people of the country to the edge of famine and health epidemics. Four year of war is as long as World War II, with no victor in sight.

Now is, therefore, the time for both sides to take stock of their failed tactics and seize this opportunity created by Resolution 2451 to construct new avenues between them for a lasting peace, based on a mutual trust and accommodation for the sake of their people.

To be sure, there has been ceasefire violations by both sides, but there is every hope that the temporary violations will soon end in order to give peace in the country a genuine chance.