Local Editor
Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi called Tuesday for UN-brokered reconciliation talks to be moved to neighboring Saudi Arabia if agreement cannot be reached on a venue inside Yemen.
The talks, which had been held in the capital Sanaa, have broken down since Hadi escaped to second city Aden last month.
The Western-backed president, who withdrew a January resignation offer after his escape saying it had been made under duress, had proposed that the talks resume in Aden or in Yemen’s third city Taez.
“As Aden and Taez are not accepted by some, I call for shifting the talks to the headquarters of the GCC in Riyadh,” Hadi told tribal chiefs.
He also called for the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council, which group’s impoverished Yemen’s oil-rich neighbors’, to sponsor the talks, an aide said.
Ansarullah movement, who are also known as Houthis, opposed any change of venue for the UN-brokered talks. The movement’s fighters have controlled the capital last September after driving al-Qaeda militants out of the capital.
The General People’s Congress party of ousted strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh has warned that it will boycott any talks held outside Sanaa.
The GCC has thrown its support behind Hadi and several member states have moved their embassies to Aden since his escape.
Source: Afp
