KUWAIT: Talks aimed at ending Yemen’s war opened in Kuwait on Thursday, with Kuwait’s top diplomat appealing to both sides to “turn war into peace” after more than a year of conflict which has killed more than 6,200 people and caused a humanitarian crisis.

Yemen’s foreign minister warned against high expectations from the UN-sponsored talks, which brought together the Houthi group and its General People’s Congress party allies with the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

The talks, originally scheduled to start on Monday, were delayed over accusations by the Houthi group of truce violations and disagreements over the agenda for the negotiations.

Kuwait’s foreign minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khalid Al-Sabah, in an opening speech at Bayan Palace, urged Yemenis to “turn war into peace and backwardness into development.”