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 Buttressed by a truce which had been largely holding since April
10, the talks in Kuwait had been inching ahead before their pause
and the Houthis said Saudi Arabia had on Saturday released 40 Yemeni
prisoners.
U.N. special envoy to Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed tweeted a
picture of delegates representing the main warring sides sitting
around a U-shaped table and said talks on Wednesday would focus on
cementing the shakey ceasefire.
The Iran-allied Houthis and Yemen's Saudi-backed exiled government
are trying to broker a peace via talks in Kuwait and ease a
humanitarian crisis in the Arabian Peninsula's poorest country,
where the conflict has drawn in regional powers and killed at least
6,000 people.
 A civil war in Yemen escalated when an armed push by the Houthis
cast the government into exile on March 26 last year.
Fearing the Shi'ite Muslim group was a proxy for its arch-nemesis
Iran, Saudi Arabia mustered an alliance of mostly Gulf Arab
countries to push the group back but still appears far from beating
the Houthis out of Sanaa.
Human Rights Watch on Wednesday urged participants in the talks to
allow international investigations of alleged war crimes by all
sides "which have not been investigated nor have resulted in any
redress for victims of unlawful attacks".
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The group cited air strikes on civilian areas by the Saudi-led
coalition backing the government and "indiscriminate" shelling and
use of landmines by the Houthis.
"The parties around the negotiating table have an obligation to
ensure that the violations against civilians are properly
investigated and appropriately punished," HRW deputy Middle East
director said in a statement.
(Reporting By Mohammed Ghobari; Writing By Maha El Dahan and Noah
Browning; Editing by Alison Williams)
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