AlJazeera,
April 18, 2016.

Talks between Houthi rebels and exiled
government yet to begin as rebels accuse Arab coalition of air raids.
 


Talks aimed at ending more than a year
of civil war and a Saudi-led intervention in Yemen have been delayed,
as Houthi rebel representatives objected to what they said was
continued fighting.
Delegations representing the Houthis
and the party of a former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who control
the capital Sanaa, have yet to depart for the talks.

They cited heavy fighting and
Saudi-led air operations as the reason for the delay in heading to
the talks, which were to be held in Kuwait.

“There’s no point in going … if
there’s no respect for the ceasefire” a senior official in
Saleh’s General People’s Congress party told the Reuters news agency
on Monday.


Al Jazeera’s Jamal Elshayyal,
reporting from Kuwait, confirmed that the Houthis had yet to arrive. He said the government delegation was already there.

There was optimism surrounding the
talks, Elshayyal said, adding that neither side had “the
same kind of urge to continue this bloody war.”

The coalition started a campaign of
air strikes last year in support of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi
after he was pushed into exile by the Houthis and forces loyal to
Saleh.


Two Hadi government officials, who
spoke anonymously to Reuters, said the rebels had no good reason not
to travel to Kuwait. “Representatives from Saleh’s
party and the Houthis are looking for excuses to delay their arrival
at a precise time, but it’s expected that they will arrive later in
Kuwait on Tuesday,” one of the officials said.

Hisham al-Omeisy, a political analyst
based in Sanaa, told Al Jazeera that the talks in Kuwait were a
positive development.
“The warring parties are
exhausted, they need an exit”.

UN-sponsored talks in June and
December failed to end the war that has killed about 6,200 people –
half of them civilians. A security vacuum created by the
conflict has allowed the local affiliate of al-Qaeda to seize
territory and opened a path for the Islamic State of Iraq and the
Levant (ISIL) group to gain a foothold.

“The only winner of the war is
al-Qaeda and ISIL,” al-Omeisy said. “They are
expanding exponentially in the south.
The spread of ISIL and al-Qaeda
is freaking international community. They are putting pressure for a
political solution.”
Fighting and air strikes persist on
several battlefronts throughout the country, especially in the
contested southwestern city of Taiz and the Nehm area, east of the
capital. On Sunday, hundreds of people in Taiz
protested a months-long siege. The protesters demanded an end to a
siege they saw was imposed by the Houthi rebels on Taiz and carried
photos of civilians killed in recent shelling, residents told DPA
news agency.

The city has for months been a
battleground between forces loyal to Hadi and the
Iran-allied Houthis.