Houthi rebels don’t want peace: Yemeni foreign minister

By Mohamed al-Samei

ADEN, Yemen (AA) – Yemen’s Houthi rebel group does not want to achieve peace, Yemeni Foreign Minister Khaled al-Yamani said Tuesday.

“The Houthis only want to wage war,” al-Yamani was quoted as saying by Yemen’s SABA news agency at a Tuesday meeting with U.S. Ambassador to Yemen Matthew Toler.

According to SABA, al-Yamani and Toler discussed ongoing efforts by UN envoy Martin Griffiths to hold a fresh round of peace talks in Sweden next month.

“The Yemeni government is dealing positively with the UN envoy’s peace efforts," al-Yamani said, going on to condemn what he described as the Houthi group’s “obstinacy”.

He also urged the international community to exert more pressure on the Houthis so as to force them to “comply with peace efforts”.

In recent weeks, Griffiths has engaged in intense shuttle diplomacy in hopes of reaching a viable peace settlement and ending Yemen’s years-long political crisis.

Impoverished Yemen has remained wracked by violence since 2014, when the Houthis overran much of the country, including capital Sanaa.

The conflict escalated in 2015 when Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies launched a devastating air campaign in Yemen aimed at rolling back Houthi gains.

To date, tens of thousands of people -- including numerous civilians -- are believed to have been killed in the conflict, which has left much of the country’s basic infrastructure in ruins.