Yemen president Hadi meets UN envoy for talks

Draft negotiation plan to be shown to other side.

UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed shakes hands with Yemen's president Abdrabu Mansur Hadi during a meeting in Yemen's southern port city of Aden on December 5. Reuters

SANAA // Yemeni president Abdrabu Mansur Hadi met with a UN envoy in Aden on Saturday to agree on peace talks with Houthi rebels set to begin in mid-December, officials from the president’s office said.

It was the first such meeting in the southern port city since pro-government forces drove the Houthis out of Aden earlier this year with the help of a Saudi-led and US-backed coalition.

The conflict, which pits the Houthis and army units loyal to a former president against a loose alliance of pro-government forces, southern separatists and other militants, has killed at least 5,700 people since March, when the fighting escalated and the Saudi-led air campaign began, according to the UN.

Previous peace efforts have ended in failure, with the government demanding the implementation of a UN resolution calling on the Houthis to lay down arms seized from the state and withdraw from territory, including the capital. The Houthis want broader negotiations on the country’s political future.

At Saturday’s meeting, UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed presented a draft plan to implement the UN resolution, the officials said, without providing details.

The draft will also be presented on Sunday in Oman to leaders of the party of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who is allied with the Houthis, party official Yasser Al Awaidi said.

Yemen’s Al Qaeda affiliate has exploited the chaos to seize territory in the south and east of the country, including a number of cities.

On Saturday, masked gunmen on motorcycles carried out separate attacks on vehicles in Aden, killing Col. Aqeel Al Khodr, a military intelligence official who supports Mr Hadi, and Judge Mohsen Alwan, who was known for sentencing Al Qaeda militants. Three other people were killed in the attack on Alwan, security officials said.

No one immediately claimed the attacks, which bore the hallmarks of Al Qaeda.

* Associated Press