Earlier, the Yemeni Saba news agency, controlled by Houthi rebels fighting Saudi Arabian-led forces in Yemen, cited “an unidentified military source” as saying a single missile was sacked into Saudi Arabia. Instead, the announcement of a new plan was greeted by rocket attacks from Al Houthi forces that struck well over the border, hitting a power station in Saudi Arabia.
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Kerry’s trip comes amid growing pressure on the Obama administration to cut back its support to Saudi Arabia.
On Saturday, a statement from the exiled government carried by the Saba news agency said: “The government is prepared to deal positively with any peaceful solutions…including an initial welcoming of the ideas resulting from the meeting in Jeddah that included the foreign secretaries of the US, the United Kingdom and Gulf states”.
A Saudi-led Arab coalition in March a year ago launched a military campaign against Huthi rebels as they closed in on UN-backed President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi in his southern refuge in Aden.
In Yemen, the SABA agency, which is under control of the Houthis, reported that two houses located in the district of Baqam in the city of Saada were destroyed by airstrikes overnight.
“Undoubtedly, Mr. Kerry knows better than others that the Saudi government in the past year and half has consistently and seriously blocked all efforts made to establish a ceasefire in Yemen”.
Mr Kerry’s meeting with the GCC foreign ministers, British Middle East minister Tobias Ellwood and United Nations envoy to Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed were led by Saudi foreign minister Adel Al Jubeir and took place on Thursday afternoon. Attacks by the Islamic State group, al-Qaida and other forces were believed responsible for the remainder of the deaths.
The U.N. human rights chief on Thursday called for an global investigation of rights abuses and violence in Yemen’s civil war which has killed thousands of people, insisting that a domestic panel set up to look into violations has not been up to the task.
Iraq’s Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari met on Monday with representatives of the Shi’ite Houthi movement fighting in Yemen’s civil war, the ministry said on its website.
The United States and Gulf states have discussed a new plan to join Houthi militia group in a unity government for ending conflict in Yemen.
Both the Saudi-led coalition and the opposing Houthis have been accused of abuses against citizens of the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula.
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Kerry said all participants agreed that a solution to the war must respect the security of Saudi Arabia and provide, “the Houthis, a minority, an opportunity to be part of a government in the future”.
