Protesters block road out of Taiz to highlight relentless Houthi siege AL-MUKALLA: The president of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council, Rashad Al-Alimi, vowed on Saturday to support current efforts by international mediators to extend the UN-brokered truce, fight corruption and unify military and security units. In a televised speech on the eve of the 32nd anniversary of Unification Day, Al-Alimi said the council supports the UN and US Yemen envoy’s continuing activities to renew the truce, which is set to expire on June 2. He called upon the world to pressure the Houthis to stop breaking the truce and implement its provisions, including lifting their siege of Taiz city. “In the name of members of the Leadership Council, we affirm our continuing support to the tireless efforts of the UN and US envoys to extend the humanitarian truce,” Al-Alimi said, noting that the truce would pave the way for peace, save lives and rescue the country from starvation. He stressed that the 2021 Saudi initiative to end the war in Yemen would be the cornerstone of plans to achieve peace in Yemen. “We also renew our adherence to the initiative of the brothers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, considering it a just basis for a comprehensive peace process.” Al-Alimi came to power in April when Yemen’s former President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi ceded authority to the eight-man Presidential Leadership Council that would run the country and start peace talks with the Houthis. On Saturday, the new president pledged to address economic problems in Aden and the other provinces, fight corruption, boost revenues and bring together different armed groups under the council’s command based on the Riyadh Agreement. “We will firmly move forward to unify the military and security establishment.” The truce that came into effect on April 2 has largely reduced violence and deaths across the country, despite hundreds of violations by the Houthis and allowed commercial flights to leave Sanaa airport as at least a dozen fuel ships entered Hodeidah port. The Yemen president’s pledge to support the renewal of the truce came as the Yemeni government and the Houthis are preparing to participate in discussions on opening roads in Taiz and the other provinces. Houthi media said on Sunday that their delegation left Sanaa for the Jordanian capital on a UN plane. A government official told Arab News on Saturday that their negotiators were told to get ready to travel to Amman for the meeting. In the besieged city of Taiz, dozens of people on Sunday arranged a rare protest near a blocked road that links with Hodeidah province, west of the city, to draw attention to the Houthi siege. The posters stood in a line on the road, carrying posters that called for ending the Houthi assault. “Taiz has paid a heavy humanitarian bill due to the siege of the Houthi militia,” read one of the posters. The Houthis have been besieging the city of Taiz since 2015 to force government troops that defend the city to surrender.