According to reports, recently Houthi rebels and ex-president Ali Saleh formed a Supreme National Council in Sanaa and called on Saudi Arabia to direct negotiations in an attempt to bypass stalled UN-sponsored peace talks.
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The new peace approach will have “a security and political track simultaneously working to provide a comprehensive settlement”, he said, adding Gulf states had “agreed unanimously on the initiative” after three months of talks in Kuwait ended earlier this month without making headway.
Kerry outlined a plan which offers the Houthis participation in government in exchange for an end to violence and a surrender of weapons. Recently it has scaled back the number of advisors based in Saudi Arabia.
Kerry said that the restoration of stability to Yemen was vital in order to ease the suffering of the civilians and to prevent the armed groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group from taking further advantage of the power vacuum.
The strikes came a day after the United Nations demanded an worldwide investigation in the killings of civilians in Yemen.
On Thursday, the United Nations human rights chief, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, called for an worldwide investigation into rights abuses and violence in Yemen’s civil war, insisting that a domestic panel set up to look into violations has not been up to the task.
The Saudi authorities, however, did not identify the party behind the attack.
Yemeni President Hadi commissioned an inquiry into the human rights abuses in 2015, but it was unsuccessful because it couldn’t operate everywhere in the country.
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other rights groups have similarly urged the US, United Kingdom and France to suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia until it curtails its airstrikes in Yemen.
The conflict has killed at least 6,500 people, half of them civilians.
“The Houthis, in a country of 26 million people, are less than 50,000”, he said. They have since sought to consolidate their hold on the country. Would that be acceptable in any system? Before the meeting, United States officials travelling with Mr Kerry said he would update the Saudi leaders on USA and Russian plans for greater military and intelligence coordination in Syria and a potential deal with Russia that could see the Syrian air force grounded while Washington and Moscow cooperate again ISIL.
But there has been growing concern in Washington that the Saudi campaign may have targeted civilian installations including hospitals.
“The goal of our meetings was, quite simply, to see if together we could find a way to end the violence of Yemen, to end the war, and to address the deeply troubling situation there”, Mr Kerry told reporters before leaving Jiddah.
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