Aden: Yemen President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi said the country’s future may be reduced to “endless rounds of conflicts and wars” unless a peace deal requires Al Houthi rebels to withdraw from the cities they seized and hand over weapons to the government.
Accusing US Secretary of State John Kerry of encouraging Al Houthis to evade surrender, Hadi said he won’t accept any peace agreement that doesn’t also include a power transition deal from the Gulf Cooperation Council and national reconciliation talks, the government-controlled state Saba news agency reported.
Hadi was referring to a road map that emerged after a foreign ministers’ meeting in Oman suggesting that the president transfer his authority to a vice-president agreed to by all actors, including Al Houthis. Kerry was quoted as saying Saudi Arabia, which has backed Hadi’s government, and Al Houthis had agreed on a plan to end the conflict — without mentioning the government itself.
In a message to the Yemeni people, Hadi vowed that he would not betray “the blood of free martyrs and give Yemen in to Iran and its tools, and we will not allow the sectarians and terrorists to mess up with the present and future of our Yemeni people”, according to Saba.
Hadi, with support from a coalition led by Saudi Arabia, is fighting Al Houthis and allied forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The president arrived on Tuesday in the port city of Mukalla, which was retaken in April from Al Qaida militants who had controlled it for about a year.
