Several political parties have called on the Yemeni government to suspend its participation in a new round of UN-brokered talks with the Houthis until the latter abides by a UN Security Council resolution for resolving the conflict in Yemen.
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The officials, one a cabinet member and the second a presidential aide, told The Associated Press that Yemen’s President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi had made the demands clear in a meeting with United Nations envoy to Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed Friday in the Saudi capital Riyadh.
In June, UN Envoy to Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed told the U.N. Security Council that the opposing parties ” Yemen’s internationally recognized government and Shiite Houthi rebels and their allied troops loyal to a former president” have responded positively to a proposed roadmap he presented to end the conflict.
The delegation’s media adviser, Ahmad Ghilan, had said in a text message, “We are committed to the time” for the resumption of negotiations and “to everything we had (previously) agreed on”.
The Yemeni national delegation has already arrived in Kuwait to participate in the fresh round of talks.
Unlike its Gulf neighbours, Oman maintains good ties with Shiite Iran, a key backer of the Huthi rebels in Yemen.
But Ould Cheikh Ahmed managed to persuade the government to join the talks after promising to push for an agreement within two weeks, according to Yemeni Foreign Minister Abdel-Malek al-Mekhlafi, the head of the government negotiating team.
The negotiations, which were suspended last month, have largely failed to produce any serious breakthrough.
However, the Houthis and their allies, for their part, say that they represent the country’s de facto rulers and urged to form a new transitional government before discussing withdrawal from cities and the other topics.
His government wants to re-establish its authority across the entire country, much of which is rebel-controlled, and restart a political transition interrupted when the Huthis seized Sanaa in 2014.
More than 6,400 people have died in Yemen since a Saudi-led coalition intervened in support of Hadi´s government in March previous year.
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There has been growing global alarm over the heavy civilian toll in Yemen, where 80 percent of the population is in urgent need of humanitarian aid.
