Sweden Diplomat Hans Grundberg to Be Named UN Envoy to Yemen
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is expected to shortly name Swedish diplomat Hans Grundberg as his new Yemen envoy, diplomats said, after China informally gave the greenlight for the appointment following a delay of several weeks.
The 15-member Security Council has to approve Grundberg – by consensus – as a replacement for Martin Griffiths, who became the UN aid chief last month after trying to mediate an end to the conflict in Yemen for the past three years.
Grundberg has been the European Union ambassador to Yemen since September 2019. UN officials informally floated his name to council members to solicit views by mid-July and 14 members said they would agree to the appointment, diplomats said, Reuters reported.
But China said it needed more time. An official with China's UN mission in New York said on Monday that China had now signed off on Grundberg's appointment, but declined to comment on why Beijing's approval had been delayed.
Guterres will now formally notify the council of Grundberg's appointment and the council will respond in a letter giving the greenlight. A spokesman for Guterres declined to comment.
Saudi Arabia, backed by the US and regional allies, launched a devastating war on Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing the government of former Yemeni president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi back to power and crushing the popular Ansarullah movement.
Yemeni armed forces and allied Popular Committees have, however, gone from strength to strength against the Saudi-led invaders, and left Riyadh and its allies bogged down in the country.
The Saudi war has left hundreds of thousands of Yemenis dead, and displaced millions more. The war has also destroyed Yemen's infrastructure and spread famine and infectious diseases across the country.
