No negotiations with Houthi rebels in Geneva, says Hadi
The sole item for discussion would be the implementation of a resolution adopted by the UN Security Council in April, said the Yemeni president
SANAA/ADEN/RIYADH: Yemen’s exiled president took a hard line on Monday ahead of weekend peace talks in Geneva, ruling out negotiations with Houthi rebels and denouncing external meddling in his country.
Meanwhile, the United Nations envoy to Yemen said on Sunday that peace talks set for next week in Geneva can end over two months of war and save the country from permanent division.
President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi said the sole item for discussion would be the implementation of a resolution adopted by the UN Security Council in April demanding the rebels withdraw from the large areas of the country they have seized.
“There will be no negotiations,” Hadi told Al Arabiya television.
Just a discussion
“It will be just a discussion about how to implement UN Security Council Resolution 2216. We will have a consultation.”
Asked if his government’s delegation would discuss reconciliation with the rebel negotiating team, Hadi said: “Not at all.”
Yemen’s Prime Minister Khaled Bahah echoed Hadi’s remarks, tell- ing a news conference in Riyadh that the Geneva meeting would be merely a “consultative” process. Bahah, who is also vice president, said the exiled government would head to the meeting with only one goal -- “implementing 2216 and reinstating the state” overran by Houthis. Once the legitimate government is reinstated, “all political factions return to dialogue to resume the political process... and approve the draft constitution and organise elections,” he added.
Announcing the talks on Saturday, UN chief Ban Ki-moon asked all sides to enter them without preconditions.
Ban “reiterates his urgent call on all Yemeni parties to engage in these consultations in good faith and without preconditions in the interest of all Yemeni people,” his spokesman said. He said the talks were aimed at securing a ceasefire, agreeing on a withdrawal plan for the Houthi rebels and stepping up deliveries of humanitarian aid.
In the capital Sanaa, coalition warplanes launched new strikes on the Houthis and their allies, hours after overnight raids hit rebel-held military positions north of the city at Shamlan and Hamdan, witnesses said.
In second-largest city Aden in the south, a woman and three of her children were killed when a Katyusha rocket, fired by rebels from the city’s north, hit their home, pro-Hadi militia spokesman Ali Al Ahmedi said.
The rebels have been trying for five days to advance towards Buraiqa, a strategic part of Aden that houses an oil refinery and a port. Medical officials said nine people, among them three civilians, were killed and 53 were wounded in 24 hours of fighting across Aden.
The rebels fired mortar rounds at a western district of third city Taez, killing three civilians and wounding four others, while nine rebels were killed in an attack by pro-Hadi fighters, officials said.
Meanwhile, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed’s interview with pan-Arab channel Al Jazeera raised hopes of ending Arab bombing and internal fighting which have killed around 2,000 Yemenis, but the government in exile presented a hard line for the negotiations and demanded the dominant Houthi group retreat.
“Geneva is a breakthrough, if it happens, it can lead to a new dynamic, an end to this conflict,” Ould Cheikh Ahmed told the Qatar-based Al Jazeera television.
“I’m optimistic that Yemen will remain unified. The conflict has not reached a point of no return ... This is why we need people to return to the negotiating table and help work to avoid sectarianism and the division between north and south,” he said.