DUBAI / SANAA: Representatives of Yemen’s ex-leader Ali Abdullah Saleh have held rare meetings with diplomats from his adversaries the United States, United Arab Emirates and Britain, a member of his party said Thursday.

Diplomats and Yemeni officials confirmed the meetings, but were careful to play down their significance. “There are negotiations in Cairo between the leaders of the Congress party and diplomats from the United States, Britain and the UAE in order to find a peaceful solution to the crisis in Yemen,” Adel Shuja, a leader of Saleh’s Congress party, told Reuters.

“These negotiations have made significant progress so far.”

Saleh’s loyalists in Yemen’s army are a key force in the country’s civil war and the talks are the first reported between him and a key member of the Arab coalition opposing him.

The UAE has been bombing Saleh’s allies for weeks and the negotiations coincide with major gains in the country’s south by Saudi-backed forces.

An official statement by the ex-president’s party later Thursday denied any meeting and a party official tweeted that Saleh was opposed to quitting the country.

Two Western diplomats contacted by Reuters played down the significance of the contacts, saying they came as part of regular discussions with Yemeni officials.

Saleh’s close links to the Houthis and the close western and Emirati ties with the Arab coalition’s main force, Saudi Arabia, render the unusual contacts highly sensitive.

Asked about the meetings during a visit to Cairo, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said he supported any effort to resolve Yemen’s war peacefully. “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the whole coalition realizes the solution to the crisis is a political solution and supports any efforts put forward to convince the different sides to accept the basis upon which a political solution can be built,” Jubeir said.

It was not immediately clear whether forces linked to Saleh had pulled back from battlefields around the strategic port of Aden, which local fighters supported by Gulf states, seized in a surprise offensive this week from Yemen’s dominant Houthis after months of stalemate.

Meanwhile, Aden’s international airport, a vital aid supply artery for war-torn south Yemen, came under rocket fire, a day after it reopened following nearly four months of fierce fighting. Katyusha rockets were fired at the facility as a Saudi military plane was delivering 20 tons of humanitarian aid, officials said.

Three rockets hit close to the landing strip as the cargo plane, the second to land at Aden since Wednesday, was still on the tarmac, airport security chief Abdullah Qaed told AFP.

Qaed accused the rebels of attacking the plane, adding that a further volley of seven rockets struck around the airport once the aircraft had taken off again.

“These Katyusha rockets were fired by the Houthis and fighters of Ali Abdullah Saleh,” he said.

A Saudi military plane carrying aid touched down Wednesday in what officials said was the start of an airlift aimed at helping the more than 21.1 million Yemenis in need of humanitarian assistance.

Loyalists set up checkpoints on access routes to the airport after the rocket attacks, witnesses and military sources said, while the Arab coalition carried out a string of air raids on rebel positions north of Aden.

Taking advantage of the relative calm, a boat chartered by the International Committee of the Red Cross and loaded with humanitarian aid docked Thursday.

Pro-Hadi fighters east of Aden, meanwhile, drove back rebels to Al-Alam region, 15 kilometers from the city limits, military sources said, killing at least three insurgents, including a chief, Abu Yahia al-Houthi.