[color=#000099][/color]DOHA, April 24 (Reuters) - Former president
Ali Abdullah Saleh called on Friday on all
Yemenis to return to political dialogue to find a
way to end the country's spiraling conflict.
Saleh's loyalists have been fighting alongside
Iranian-allied Houthi rebels who toppled the
central government, and U.S. Secretary of State
John Kerry put the onus for peacemaking on
the Houthis and their supporters to cease fire.
Saleh also called for talks between Yemenis and
Saudi Arabia, which has led a nearly month-
long bombing campaign against the Shi'ite
Muslim Houthi militia, to be held under United
Nations auspices in Geneva.
Saudi-led coalition warplanes continue to target
the positions of the Houthis and Saleh loyalists
despite announcing an end to the campaign it
began a month ago with the goal of helping
restore President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
"I call on all conflicting parties in all provinces
to stop fighting and return to dialogue in all
provinces," Saleh, who was forced from power
by months of mass protests in 2011, said in an
emailed statement.
He also urged the Houthis to accept an April 13
U.N. Security Council resolution calling on them
to drop their weapons and quit cities they have
seized, after Saudi-led forces stop their
intervention in Yemen.
Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter and
arch regional adversary of Iran, is concerned
about possible security threats posed by the
Houthis' advance across Yemen since last
September.
Sporadic clashes were reported in Aden on
Saturday, after a night of heavy air strikes by
Saudi-led forces on Houthi targets in the Lahj
provincial capital, al-Houta.
Mohammed al-Bukhaiti of the decision-making
politburo of the Houthis' Ansarullah group said
the resolution was impractical and biased. "It is
not possible to implement it (the resolution) in
practice, especially the issue of disarmament
and withdrawal from the cities," Bukhaiti told
Reuters by telephone.
The Houthis have argued that laying down their
arms and vacating the cities under their control
would pave the way for al Qaeda militants to
fill the vacuum.
Kerry said the Houthis needed to stop fighting
and this could bring an end to Saudi air strikes
and an opening for a political dialogue.
"This has to be a two-way street," Kerry told a
news conference in Iqaluit, Canada, where he
attended an Arctic meeting. "We need the
Houthis, and we need those who can influence
them, to make sure that they're prepared to
try to move as they said they are to the
negotiating table."
Saleh said he was ready to reconcile with all
parties that have opposed him since 2011 "for
the interest of the nation".
He further called on all militants, al Qaeda and
armed supporters of Hadi to withdraw from
the southern port of Aden and hand over
power to the army and local authorities.
In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman said a
flotilla of nine Iranian naval and cargo ships
that U.S. officials feared was carrying arms to
Yemen sailed northeast in the direction of Iran
on Friday and this should ease U.S. concerns.
The Iranian state news agency IRNA, however,
quoted Iran's top navy commander, Admiral
Habibollah Sayyari as saying on Saturday that
the flotilla was still carrying out its mission in
the Gulf of Aden.
The Houthis' Bukhaiti also denied reports that
Yemen's defence minister, General Mahmoud
al-Subaihi, and Hadi's brother Nasser, who led
local militias in Aden, had been freed by the
Houthis. He said both men were being held as
prisoners of war and would eventually be freed
when fighting ends.
(Reporting by Mohamed Ghobari, Arshad
Mohammed and Sam Wilkin; Writing by Amena
Bakr and Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Sami
Aboudi and Mark Heinrich)
Source: reuters.com