RIYADH-SABA
President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi said that his government accepted the ceasefire deal of December 18 with Houthiputschists in the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah to save civilian lives and the city's infrastructure.

"We accepted the Hodeidah deal to save civilian lives and the city's infrastructure," Hadi said in a meeting with the country's lawmakers in the presence of his deputy and prime minister in the Saudi capital on Thursday. He said that the government "placed the humanitarian concerns on the top" of the Stockholm talks of December 13 so as to alleviate the suffering "brought upon our people by the inauspicious Houthi war and coup" of September 2014.

"We put the release of captives, the removal of the Houthiblockade on Taiz city and humanitarian entry pointselsewhere and the restoration of public revenues to be used for the payment of all public employees…as priorities in the talks of Sweden."
Hadi ordered the government to resume the payment of salaries to Hodeidah public employees, after years of its suspension by the Houthi militia.