Yemen

Turkey?s region is surrounded by problems and Ankara is striving to maintain peace and prosperity, President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an claimed during a visit to Kazakhstan on April 17.

Erdo?an cited the problems of ?Crimean Tatars in Ukraine? and ?deterioration and oppression in Syria,? speaking at the Ahmet Yesevi University in the Kazakh city of Turkistan.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon highlighted on Thursday the gravity of the situation in Yemen and called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to the conflict.

This comes as Jamal Benomar, the Special Adviser to the Secretary General on Yemen, announced his resignation from the position, the news centre of UN informs.

United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon called April 16 for an immediate halt to the fighting in Yemen, as he began the hunt for a new UN envoy who can broker a political end to the conflict.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavu?o?lu will visit Washington from April 18 to 21, during which he is likely to focus influencing the wording of the White House?s official commemoration on the upcoming centennial anniversary of the mass killings of Ottoman Armenians in 1915.

The UN peace envoy to Yemen, Jamal Benomar, has resigned, the UN said April 15, after losing support from Gulf countries for his mission in the conflict-riven nation.
     
The Moroccan diplomat had been UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's special envoy for Yemen since 2012.
      

Another three Romanian citizens and one family member, citizen of the Republic of Yemen have been safely evacuated, by car, from the locality Wadi Dawan to Saudi Arabia, according to a Romanian Foreign Affairs Ministry (MAE) release remitted to AGERPRES on Wednesday.

Photo credit: (c) Liviu SOVA / AGERPRES ARCHIVE

Ankara has voiced pleasure over the adoption of a U.N. Security Council resolution imposing an arms embargo targeting Houthi rebels who rule most of Yemen, calling the decision "a clear message and warning" to the force.

Poverty, gender discrimination and violence are keeping more than 12 million children in the Middle East out of school, despite efforts to expand education, the UN children's agency warned April 15.
      
An additional three million children in Syria and Iraq have been forced out of school by conflict, UNICEF said in a new report.
      

Egypt and Saudi Arabia are considering holding joint military manoeuvres in the kingdom as the allies carry out air strikes in its neighbour Yemen, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's office said.
      
Other Gulf Arab countries would also participate, the Egyptian president's office said late Tuesday.
      

US Secretary of State John Kerry on April 15 welcomed a compromise with Congress on giving lawmakers a say on any final deal on Iran's nuclear programme.

Kerry said the measure approved April 14 by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which raises the threshold for critics in Congress to block any accord with Tehran, made him "confident" ahead of a June 30 deadline.