Aden — British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt visited Aden on Sunday on the first visit to Yemen by a Western foreign minister since the start of the conflict in 2015, and the first by a UK Foreign Secretary since 1996. In a display of the UK's support to the government of Yemen and for UN efforts to secure peace, the Foreign Secretary met Yemeni Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Saeed Al-Khanbashi and Foreign Minister Khaled Al-Yamani. Hunt said that Yemen peace deal was "in last chance saloon." "We are now in last chance saloon for the Stockholm peace process. The port of Hodeida was supposed to be cleared of militias and left under neutral control by the beginning of January. The process could be dead within weeks if we do not see both sides sticking to their commitments in Stockholm," he stressed. Hunt met Yemeni President Abdrabbu Mansour Hadi in Riyadh on Saturday. While visiting the port of Aden Hunt saw humanitarian aid being delivered and met aid workers, including representatives of the Aden Office of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), to discuss the humanitarian response. Hunt's visit to Aden was part of a Yemen-focused Gulf tour during which he also engaged regional leaders including Sultan Qaboos in Oman, Saudi Foreign Minister Ibrahim Al-Assaf, and UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah Bin Zayed as part of a sustained UK diplomatic campaign to support the UN-led peace process.
