UN envoy urges Yemeni parties to pursue peace talks

The United Nations special envoy to Yemen has called on the Yemeni warring parties to pursue UN-brokered peace talks in Kuwait for another week.

“I met today with both delegations (and) suggested a one-week extension to the talks,” Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed wrote on his Twitter account on Saturday.

He said he also proposed a “framework for a solution to the crisis in Yemen” without providing further details.

The appeal comes after the Saudi-backed delegation loyal to Yemen's resigned president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, said it was pulling out of the UN-brokered talks.

There was no immediate comment from the Saudi-backed team, but a source close to Hadi said the delegation was considering the UN envoy’s proposal.

The news of Hadi delegation’s withdrawal from Kuwait talks come two days after Ansarullah movement and former president Ali Abdullah Saleh’s General People’s Congress party agreed to set up a governing council to run the conflict-ridden country.

The two parties formed a 10-member “supreme political council’, tasked with managing “state affairs politically, militarily, economically, administratively, socially and in security" based on the country’s constitution.

SS