SANAA, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- A UN mission monitoring a cease-fire agreement in Yemen's embattled Red Sea port city of Hodeidah failed on Tuesday to convene a joint meeting between warring parties, a local security official said.
"The government side did not show up," the official told Xinhua on condition of anonymity, giving no further details.
Meanwhile, pro-government Almasdar Online news website reported that the government representatives headed last night to the port city, but Houthi rebels had prevented them from crossing a road toward the place of the meeting.
Almasdar Online cited Wadhah al-Dibeash, the spokesman of the Liberating Forces of the Western Coast, as saying that "the rebels had pointed guns at the government team and prevented them from reaching the agreed place to attend the agreed joint meeting on Tuesday morning."
The UN has yet to release a statement regarding the issue, while spokesmen for the government and Houthi group could not be immediately reached for comments.
The meeting, if convened, would be the first joint meeting to be chaired by newly-appointed head of the UN monitoring mission Abhijit Guha, who arrived in Hodeidah last week, succeeding Micheal Lollesgaard of Denmark.
Hodeidah is the main Yemeni port city on the Red Sea and key lifeline entry of most Yemen's commercial imports and humanitarian aid.
The grinding war of more than four years has pushed over 20 million people to the verge of starvation.
Iran-allied Houthi rebels control much of Hodeidah while the Saudi-backed government troops have advanced to the southeastern districts.
The UN is overseeing the deal that reached in Stockholm in December last year between the exiled Yemeni government and Houthi rebels. The deal was seen as the first phase toward achieving a comprehensive political solution to end the civil war.
According to the deal, both warring parties should withdraw their forces from Hodeidah by Jan. 7 to avert a major attack on the port city, but both warring parties have failed to implement the deal, putting the peace agreement in jeopardy and threatening a major battle that could lead to famine.
