Mattis calls for Yemen ceasefire, peace talks within 'next 30 days'

US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis called Tuesday for a ceasefire in Yemen and for parties to come to the negotiating table within the next 30 days.

The Pentagon chief said the US had been watching the conflict "for long enough" and said he believes Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who are in a US-backed coalition fighting Shiite Huthi rebels, are ready for talks.

"We have got to move toward a peace effort here, and we can't say we are going to do it some time in the future," Mattis said at the US Institute of Peace in Washington.

"We need to be doing this in the next 30 days."
He said the US is calling for all warring parties to meet with United Nations special envoy Martin Griffiths in Sweden in November and "come to a solution."
"The longer term solution, and by longer term I mean 30 days from now, we want to see everybody around a peace table based on a ceasefire, based on a pull back (of Huthis) from the border and then based on a ceasing dropping of bombs that will permit the special envoy Martin Griffiths... to get them together in Sweden and end this war. That is the only way we are going to really solve this."