Muscat: A delegation of the Al Houthi Ansar Allah group, led by head of the Al Houthi political council, Saleh Al Samad, arrived in Oman on Saturday evening, according to media reports.
The delegation will discuss ending the Yemen crisis, the pro-Al Houthi Al Masirah channel reported.
Spokesman Mohammad Abdul Salam said before leaving Sana’a that the delegation will discuss the crisis with Omani officials and get to know the Omani point of view on the conflict in Yemen.
Abdul Salam hopes that there will be a consensus to stop the air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition before UN-sponsored peace talks convene in Geneva on May 28 and lead to a Yemeni-Yemeni dialogue that aims to rebuild Yemen.
Yemen’s government spokesman Rajeh Badi, however, said on Saturday that President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi will not attend the talks in Geneva.
Badi says Hadi will not attend due to the security situation and because Al Houthis have not satisfied a government precondition to pull out of towns and cities they occupy — including the capital, Sana’a.
The leader of Al Houthi rebels, Abdul Malek Al Houthi, has called the talks the “only solution” for the conflict.
An Omani delegation had arrived in Sana’a on Saturday to accompany the Al Houthi delegation to Muscat.
The Omani Ministry of Foreign Affairs has not issued a statement in this regard so far.
Yemen has been pounded by the air strikes since March 25 by a Saudi-led coalition in response to appeals by exiled president Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi after the Al Houthi militia took most of the country.
Meanwhile, Omani hospitals received another batch of 47 injured Yemeni nationals affected by the war last Monday. Thirty of them have been transferred to Al Khoula hospital.
The rest were transferred to the Armed Forces Hospital and Sultan Qaboos University Hospital, medical source told Gulf News.
So far, Oman has received more than 137 Yemenis for medical treatment in Muscat government hospitals.
Some of them were discharged from the hospitals, while others continue to undergo medical treatment.
Oman is the only gulf country that refused to participate in the Saudi-led Operation Storm of Resolve in Yemen, and has stressed that dialogue is the only way forward.
— with inputs from AP