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Top Houthi leader welcomes UN-backed Yemen peace talks

In this March 25, 2015, file photo, Mohammed Ali al-Houthi (C), who heads Yemen’s Supreme Revolutionary Council, attends the funeral procession of victims killed in bombing attacks that hit a pair of mosques in Sana’a, Yemen. (AP)

A senior leader of Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement has welcomed upcoming UN-sponsored peace talks over the deadly conflict in the Arab country.

On Wednesday, Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, the head of the Supreme Revolutionary Council, voiced the movement’s readiness to take part in the peace talks, which is expected to kick off in the Swiss city of Geneva on June 14.

"Dialogue is the principle to us. There are no objections to talks," said the second-in-command of the Ansarullah movement in an interview with The Associated Press.

Houthi lashed out at Yemen’s fugitive former president, Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, and his supporters, including the Saudi regime, for “foiling” any peace effort aimed at restoring peace and stability to the violence-ravaged country.

Yemen’s fugitive former president, Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, gives a televised speech from the Saudi capital city of Riyadh, April 21, 2015. (AFP)

"They are putting pre-conditions to obstruct any talks that could lead the Yemeni people to a solution," he stated in reference to the earlier remarks by Hadi and his cabinet members urging Houthi fighters to lay down arms and abandon the areas under their control as preconditions for any peace negotiations.

The Houthi official also stressed that no peace deal could be achieved while Riyadh refuses to stop its military aggression against the Yemeni people.

The peace talks should resume from where it stopped last year, with the emphasis being put upon the establishment of a presidential council, and a new government and parliament, he added.

Houthi also rejected the allegations made by Riyadh that Tehran is arming the Ansarullah fighters.

"There is no Iranian intervention in Yemen and the Saudis can inspect the missiles (we fire) and see if these are made in Iran…We say that they are purely Yemeni-made," he pointed out.

Back in May, a high-ranking Ansarullah delegation reportedly visited the Omani capital city of Muscat to discuss ways to end the bloodshed in the impoverished Arab country.

On March 26, Saudi Arabia started its aggression against the Yemeni people with the aim to undermine the Ansarullah revolutionaries of the Houthi movement, who are in control of capital Sana’a and several major provinces, and bring Hadi back to power.

In the latest in a string of deadly strikes, Saudi warplanes targeted several positions in Abla region and the town of Sahar in the northwestern province of Sa’ada, killing at least 11 people, including eight children.

Saudi airborne assaults also pounded a residential area and a radio station in the capital city of Sana’a, leaving over 30 people injured.

FNR/AS/MHB


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