Yemen’s Shiite rebels on Thursday announced a formal alliance with the country’s ousted president and his former ruling party by setting up a new political council to rule the country, a step described by the United Nations Envoy to Yemen as jeopardizing peace talks in Kuwait.
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“The negotiations have completely ended”, said Abdullah al-Olaimi, deputy director of the Yemeni president’s office and a member of the government team to the United Nations -brokered talks being held in Kuwait.
The U.N. envoy has said the alliance violated worldwide resolutions and urged both sides to “refrain from unilateral actions that undermine political transition”.
He said he also proposed a “framework for a solution to the crisis in Yemen”, without elaborating.
The accord as quoted by the sabanews.net cited what it called the global community’s failure to rein in the “arrogance of the Saudi aggression” as an important factor in the decision to ditch the peace talks.
The coalition has been backing the internationally-recognized government in its war against Shiite rebels known as Houthis and their allies.
Saudi Arabia has said it intervened in the war to try to restore Hadi to power after Houthi forces began advancing on his temporary base in the southern port city of Aden a year ago, and to roll back Houthi gains.
The resolution calls on the Huthis to withdraw from territories they occupied in 2014, to hand over their arms and return state institutions to the legitimate government.
They also condemned the formation of the 10-member council.
“There can be no more talks after the new coup”, delegation spokesman Mohammad Al-Emrani told AFP on Friday.
Hadi’s government is backed by a US -assisted, Saudi-led military coalition that has been fighting the Shiite rebels, also known as the Houthis, and their allies since March 2015.
Those talks have been stalling amid fundamental disputes over the agenda.
Ould Cheikh Ahmed who has been brokering 100 days of talks aimed at a peaceful settlement said the move endangered the negotiations being held in Kuwait. Most of the discussions focused on the type of the government to run Yemen during a transition period.
The war has killed over 6,400 people, mostly civilians, and displaced over two million residents.
On Sunday, two policemen were killed and a third was wounded by a bomb and a vehicle blew up elsewhere in the city without causing casualties, officials said.
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Further east, gunmen on a motorbike shot dead an officer in the town of Shibam in Hadramawt province, a military official said.
