Exiled Yemeni President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi was to open a conference of political parties from his war-torn country yesterday, but Iran-backed Houthi Shiite rebels are boycotting the talks.
The Houthis, who are fighting forces loyal to Hadi and have seized large parts of the country including the capital, want talks to be held in Yemen and are staying away from the meeting of about 400 delegates in Riyadh.
The Houthis have long complained of marginalization and fought six wars with the central government between 2004 and 2010 before launching a sweeping advance from their northern stronghold last year.
Photo: AFP
Their southward push forced Hadi to flee to Riyadh and prompted a Saudi-led coalition to launch air strikes against the Houthis, who are allied with fighters loyal to former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The Riyadh talks start on the final day of a five-day truce proposed by Saudi Arabia to allow vital humanitarian aid into Yemen. Despite the truce, clashes between rebels and pro-government forces have continued on the ground.
Although the Houthis are not participating, Saleh’s General People’s Congress party “has many of its leaders taking part,” Abdulaziz al-Jaber, head of the conference’s organizing committee, told reporters on Saturday.
However, he said that “we will not deal with” Saleh or others facing international sanctions.
Saleh, who led the country until 2011, has been on UN and US sanctions lists since November last year.
Jaber said the three-day meeting is “not a dialogue,” but a decisionmaking conference.
“What will happen in Riyadh is an announcement of an agreement that will be binding on all parties present in Riyadh,” he said.
One of the goals of the meeting is to work toward a constitution that would be presented to the Yemeni people.
“Our goal is to hold a referendum to put the results of the dialogue into practice. We reassure the people that restoring the state is inevitable,” Jaber said.
About 1,600 people, many of them civilians, have been killed since late March and more than 6,200 others have been injured, while about 450,000 Yemenis have been internally displaced because of the war, according to the UN.
At least 10 people were killed in overnight battles in the Yemeni city of Taiz between Houthis and militiamen, residents and medical sources said yesterday.
The fighting in Taiz comes despite the truce to distribute aid to the millions deprived of food, fuel and medicine by weeks of fighting.
Fighting also took place in the city of Ad Dali’ on Saturday night, but there was no immediate information on casualties.
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