ADEN, Yemen, Feb. 22 (Xinhua) -- A one-month round of Yemeni consultations on exchanging prisoners and political detainees under the auspices of the United Nations was concluded in Jordan, without achieving any progress.

This round, the fifth of its kind, between delegations of Yemen's government and the Houthi rebel group began on Jan. 24, under direct supervision from the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

On Sunday, the UN's Special Envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths declared concluding the consultations between the two warring rivals, confirming that the results were not constructive.

"I am disappointed that this round of talks did not amount to what we saw in Switzerland last September, which resulted in the historic release of 1,056 detainees," the envoy said in a brief statement.

During the latest talks, the parties "discussed strategies and possibilities to fulfill their commitments under the Stockholm Agreement ... they committed to keep discussing the parameters of a future expanded release operation," Griffiths said.

The envoy urged the two warring parties "to continue their discussions and consultations, conclude the implementation of what they agreed to and expand the arrangements to release more detainees soon."

He reiterated his call for "the unconditional release of all sick, wounded, elderly and children detainees as well as detained civilians, including women and journalists."

An official of Yemen's government told Xinhua on condition of anonymity that "the consultations ... faced many obstacles and failed to reach consensus on the issue of prisoners."

He pointed out that the discussions mainly focused on freeing a list composed of 301 war prisoners from both warring sides, "but they differed over specifying the names and numbers of prisoners included in the list leading to postpone reaching a final agreement."

The Saudi-backed Yemeni government and the Iran-backed Houthi group exchanged accusations and blamed each other for the failure of the prisoner swap talks.

Majid Fadayel, a member of the government delegation to the consultations, said "we made great concessions for the success of this round, unless the intransigence of the Houthis thwarted it."

Fadayel, who is the undersecretary of the pro-government ministry of Human Rights, said that the Houthis included names of killed fighters in their lists and insisted on the release of them from the government's jail, "an apparent obstinacy to obstruct the consultations."

He thought the position of the Houthis after Washington canceled their classification as a "terrorist organization" had "changed dramatically ... which negatively affected the the success of the consultations."

On the other side, Abdul Qader Murtada, head of the Houthi delegation to the consultations, said the negotiations ended without any achievement due to the opposing stances of "the aggression forces and their mercenaries."

"We tried in every possible way to make the consultations successful and made a number of fair proposals to overcome the differences, but to no avail," he said in a press statement.

Yemen's former Minister of Human Rights Houria Mashhour told Xinhua that the Houthis are using the prisoners' issue "that's purely humanitarian as a means for political pressure."

She urged the international community to exercise responsibilities and exert pressures on the warring rivals to resolve this humanitarian issue.

In October 2020, the Yemeni government and the Houthi rebels released a total of 1,056 prisoners from both sides, the largest UN-sponsored exchange deal between them since the outbreak of a civil war in Yemen.

Yemen has been mired in the civil war since late 2014, when the Houthi militia seized control of several northern provinces and forced the internationally-recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi out of Sanaa. Enditem

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