Hadi rejects UN peace proposal

aden — Yemen’s president on Saturday rejected a UN peace proposal for his war-battered country.

Forces loyal to President Abdrabbu Mansour Hadi’s government have been locked since 2014 in deadly battles with Iran-backed Houthi rebels who overran Sanaa late that year.

The latest peace proposal submitted by UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed was rejected by Hadi who even refused to receive it as he met the mediator in Riyadh.

The contents of the roadmap which the envoy already presented to the rebels on Tuesday have not been made public.

But informed sources say it calls for agreement on naming a new vice-president after the rebels withdraw from Sanaa and other cities and hand over heavy weapons to a third party.

Hadi would then transfer power to the vice president who would appoint a new prime minister to form a government in which the north and south of Yemen would have equal representation.

A statement on the government’s sabanew.net quoted Hadi as saying the roadmap “only opens a door towards more suffering and war and is not a map for peace”.

It cited Hadi as saying the plan “rewards the putschists while punishing the Yemeni people and legitimacy”. Warring parties in Yemen are under pressure to end the conflict that has left the country grappling with increasing cases of malnutrition. —