Ahmed Al-Haj| Associated Press SANAA: Three senior Yemeni politicians say a United Nations peace conference set to take place at the end of the month has been indefinitely postponed.
The talks, scheduled in Geneva for May 28, were an attempt to reach a political settlement and end the country's armed conflict between Shiite rebels known as Houthis and Yemen's embattled internationally recognized government now in exile in Saudi Arabia.
Three officials from Houthi, socialist and unionist parties said late Sunday they were notified about the postponement and that no new date had been set. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists.
Houthis backed the talks, though Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi had demanded the rebels withdraw from cities they seized before going to the talks.
Saudi forces, Houthis trade heavy fire, border crossing hit
CAIRO: Saudi forces and Yemen’s Houthi militia traded heavy artillery fire which destroyed part of the main border crossing between the two countries overnight, residents said Sunday, an escalation of the two-month war. The Haradh border crossing, the largest for people and goods between Saudi Arabia and its impoverished neighbor, was evacuated amid shelling, which razed its departure lounge and passport section, witnesses said.
Residents of several Yemeni villages in the area left their homes and fled from the frontier, which has turned into a front line between the kingdom and the Iran-backed rebels.
Air raids hit military bases and weapons stores in the capital Sanaa and local officials said a mid-level Houthi commander, Abu Bassam al-Kibsi, was killed in an airstrike in the central province of Raymah.
Saudi Arabia has led an Arab coalition bombing the Houthis and backing southern Yemeni fighters opposing the group and loyal to the exiled government in Saudi Arabia headed by President Abed Rabbou Mansour Hadi.
Local fighters combatting the Houthis in Yemen’s south reported Saudi-led airstrikes on a major air base controlled by the group in Lahej province and say they killed eight Houthi fighters in an ambush in Daleh province Sunday.
Residents in the central city of Taiz said Houthi forces and pro-Hadi fighters fired tank and artillery shells at each other throughout the city overnight, killing five civilians.
The Houthis seized control of a military base on a strategic mountaintop in the center of the city, eyewitnesses said.
In Aden, sporadic clashes rocked the port city killing two civilians and six rebels, after a day of fierce fighting that raged in the north, east and west of the city. Air raids also struck several targets in the evening, including the landing strip at Aden airport, and the city’s northern suburbs, officials said.
Meanwhile, a ship carrying 460 tons of Emirati humanitarian aid, including medical and food supplies, docked in the city.
The United Nations says that more than 1,600 people have been killed in the country since late March. Close to half-a-million more have been displaced and, although some aid trickled in last week during a five-day cease-fire, people still lack basic needs, including water, electricity and fuel.
“Aden needs urgently at least 200,000 food rations for the displaced,” local aid coordinator Ali al-Bikri said.
A United Nations-backed peace conference set for May 28 in Geneva remains in doubt, as Hadi’s exiled government in Saudi Arabia has expressed reluctance to attend before the Houthis recognize their authority and quit the main cities.
The Houthis have demanded a cease-fire before any talks.
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