New Yemeni Foreign Minister Says Houthis Agree to Join Settlement Process

13:05 GMT, 26 May 2018

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Yemen's Houthi movement has agreed to participate in a reconciliation process and accepted UN-backed peace proposals, Yemeni Foreign Minister Khaled Hussein Alyemany, who had become the foreign minister earlier in the week, told Saturday the Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper.

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"I believe that the rebels are in a complicated situation now and they have agreed to work with the settlement proposals," Alyemany told Al Arabiya.

The minister added that the Houthis had expressed readiness to withdraw from the cities under their control and to lay down arms. The Houthis had not commented on the statement of Alyemany yet.

After he assumed the ministerial post, Alyemany told the Asharq Al-Awsat, that he would exert efforts to back peace efforts of UN Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths, adding that the Houthi rebels should lay down arms and leave the regions under their control in order to be engaged in negotiations.

Houthi Rebels Claim Attack on Saudi Military Base, Riyadh Denies

25 May 2018, 11:24 GMT

Yemen has long been engulfed in an armed conflict between the government headed by Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and the predominately Shia Houthi movement. The Saudi-led coalition of mostly Persian Gulf nations has been carrying out airstrikes against the Houthis at Hadi's request since March 2015.

The United Nations has taken a number of steps to end the hostilities and to bring the parties to the conflict to the bargaining table. Several rounds of UN-mediated talks have not yielded any major results so far.