The first commercial flight in nearly six years took off from Yemen’s capital on Monday, a major step forward in a peace process that has provided rare relief from a Saudi-led war.

The first commercial flight out of Yemen's capital in six years was indefinitely postponed Sunday, after the Saudi-led coalition waging a war against the country refused to issue permits, the national carrier said.

By Abbas Moqtadaei*

The spokesperson for Ansarullah resistance movement said the US seeks to prolong the state of brutal siege and aggression against Yemen with its plan to launch naval patrol in the Red Sea.

A string of political developments has occurred in Yemen, enhancing prospects for ending a seven-year-old war waged by Saudi Arabia and a number of its allies against the Ansarullah movement. Days after a two-month cease-fire brokered by the United Nations came to force in Yemen, Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, the self-proclaimed president, stepped aside on Thursday and handed over all his powers to a newly-formed Presidential Leadership Council. In an exclusive interview with Iran Daily, former Iranian ambassador to Yemen Morteza Rahimi said the temporary truce could be a turning point in bringing the Saudi-led aggression to an end.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said the blockade imposed by the Saudi-led coalition on Yemen has to be lifted completely for humanitarian aid to be dispatched to the impoverished country.

After the exiled former president of Yemen officially handed powers, Yemen’s Ansarullah movement said the move deprived the United Nations of its excuse to continue supporting the aggressors in the seven-year Saudi-led war.

The director general of the Yemen Executive Mine Action Centre (YEMAC) said the Saudi-led military coalition has dropped more than three million cluster bombs on Yemen since the beginning of the devastating war in March 2015.

Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on Sunday an agreement is “close” in paused negotiations to restore the 2015 nuclear deal.

A tanker carrying badly needed fuel arrived in Yemen’s blockaded port of Hodeida on Sunday, as a cease-fire meant to stop the fighting in the war-torn country for two months entered its first full day.

International Desk

Yemen must not become a forgotten crisis behind Ukraine, organisers of Wednesday’s UN pledging conference said, warning of catastrophic hunger if donations were not forthcoming.

A senior Yemeni official reacted to a recent report that the Saudi-based Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is considering inviting the Ansarullah resistance movement and other Yemeni parties for consultations, saying the kingdom cannot be a mediator as it is a perpetrator of the bloody war.

At least 47 children were “killed or maimed” in Yemen’s war in January and February following a surge in violence, the United Nations said on Saturday.

Yemen’s armed forces claimed a drone attack on a refinery in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Thursday morning, which Saudi state media said ignited a fire.