United News of Bangladesh

Yemen’s military has launched attacks on Iran-backed Houthi rebels, prompting a warning from the United Nations that the country faces a growing risk of renewed large-scale fighting. Meanwhile, Turkey’s parliament has taken an important step toward a proposed peace process with Kurdish militants. Yemen strikes Houthi positionsYemen’s military said it carried out attacks against Houthi positions in response to recent strikes by the rebels in central and eastern parts of the country. Col. Majed al-Nazili, a spokesperson for the Yemeni military, said the attacks targeted Houthi “sites and capabilities” along several front lines, without providing further details. He said the operation was intended to protect the military and defend its positions, marking a significant escalation since a 2022 truce largely brought the fighting to a halt. Yemen’s long-running civil war pits the Iran-backed Houthis against a Saudi-led coalition supporting the country’s internationally recognized government. UN envoy Hans Grundberg on Friday called on all sides to show restraint. “Yemen today faces a greater risk of renewed large-scale conflict than at any point since the UN-brokered truce of April 2022,” he said in a statement. Turkey’s Kurdish peace bill advancesIn Turkey, a parliamentary committee approved a draft law on Saturday aimed at supporting a peace process with Kurdish militants. The bill includes measures that could provide conditional relief from prison sentences for thousands of former members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. The PKK announced last year that it would disarm and dissolve as part of an initiative aimed at ending its decades-long conflict with the Turkish state. The proposed law sets out procedures for the group’s disarmament and measures to help reintegrate some of its members. It would suspend certain prison sentences for people convicted of belonging to the PKK and delay legal proceedings against others. The measures would take effect after Turkey’s National Security Council confirms that the PKK has dissolved and surrendered its weapons. The bill is expected to be debated and voted on by the full parliament early next week. The conflict between Turkey and the PKK has killed tens of thousands of people since the 1980s and has also spread into neighboring Iraq and Syria. Turkey and its Western allies classify the PKK as a terrorist organization.