An estimated 9,000 people have died in the Yemen conflict since March 2015.
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Delegates of the government strongly insist that they represent Yemen’s sole legitimate governing authority, and call for the full implementation of last year’s UN Security Council Resolution 2216.
Across the country, at least 14 million people, more than half of the population, are in need of emergency food and life-saving assistance.
Otherwise, they would have ended without result on Saturday after Yemen’s government pulled out over an attempted coup by rebel forces.
Moreover, on July 30, Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi endorsed the agreement and has given the government’s delegation consent to sign, provided the opposing sides sign the agreement prior to August seventh.
The agreement to extend talks until August 7 capped a day in which United Nations peace envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, who requested the extension, offered what he described as a framework for a solution to almost two years of fighting between government forces and the Iran-backed rebels.
The Houthi top leaders have also reaffirmed their demand for a consensus president to lead the transition in any peace deal, but government delegates have firmly rejected and insisted on implementation of the United Nations resolution first.
The resolution orders Houthi militias to withdraw from Sanaa and all other cities occupied earlier, hand back weapons and release political prisoners before forming a new sharing transitional government.
One pre-condition, however, is that the Huthis and allied forces loyal to Saleh sign the deal by August 7, Mikhlafi wrote on Twitter.
There has been no official reaction from the rebels.
The attack comes one day after the Saudi-led military coalition said seven Saudi border guards, including an officer, were killed in a cross-border clash with militants from Yemen.
The statement cited by the rebel-run news agency charged that the Yemeni government announcement of a draft settlement was “no more than media stunts” aimed at foiling talks.
It claimed that dozens of the rebels were killed.
They also condemned the formation of the 10-member council.
A defiant Saleh defended the new council, which he said aimed at “filling the political void left in the country after the legitimacy of Hadi expired and he fled” to Saudi Arabia.
A police officer was killed on Saturday when a bomb blew up his vehicle in Yemen’s second city Aden, a security official said.
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Al Qaeda and ISIL have exploited the turmoil of Yemen’s war to expand their operations in the country.
