The United Nations said on Friday it was ready to help supervise Yemen’s vital Hodeidah port to protect it from “potential destruction”, as its envoy visited the city on Friday to urge calm ahead of planned talks to end the countrys civil war. The UN envoy met with the management of insurgents-held port, an important supply line to the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa and the entry point for most of Yemens food imports and humanitarian aid. "I am here to tell you today that we have agreed that the UN should now pursue actively and urgently detailed negotiations for a leading UN role in the Port and more broadly," UN envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths, said after talks with coup leaders. "We believe that such a role will preserve the essential humanitarian pipeline that starts here and serves the people of Yemen. "We hope that it will also contribute to international efforts to increase the capacity and effectiveness of port operations." Griffithss visit was intended to send a message to the Houthi insurgents who control Hodeidah and the government forces who have been trying to retake the Red Sea city to halt their fighting in the run-up to the talks in Sweden, a UN source was quoted as saying. UN spokesman Rheal LeBlanc told reporters earlier in Geneva that Griffiths had specific ideas about managing the port that he would present to the parties to the conflict. The aim was to “protect the port itself from potential destruction, and preserve the main humanitarian pipeline to the people of Yemen,” LeBlanc said. Griffiths arrived earlier in the day in Hodeidah, the latest focus of the war between the Houthi group, which controls the city, and pro-government forces backed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The port is an important supply line to the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa, located in mountains to the northeast of Hodeidah, and to much of the country. Griffiths told the UN Security Council last week that Yemen’s warring sides had given “firm assurances” they were committed to attending peace talks he hopes to convene in Sweden in December. LeBlanc said Griffiths wanted a halt to the recent escalation in fighting around Hodeidah in order to “create a conducive environment” for the Sweden consultations. Griffiths visited Sanaa on Thursday to talk to Houthi leaders about their attendance in Sweden. The Saudi-led, Western-backed coalition intervened in Yemen in March 2015 to restore the internationally-recognized government ousted from Sanaa in 2014 by the Iran-backed Houthis. The UN’s World Food Programme said that on Friday it completed food distribution to 180,000 people, or about 30,000 families, in Hodeidah city, reducing the danger they would have faced if they had to travel to get supplies.