Yemen has been in upheaval since the Houthis surged out of their stronghold Saada province in the north and seized the capital Sanaa in September, a move they said was aimed at forcing Hadi to bring them into the government.
A delegation from the exiled Yemeni government is to leave Geneva on Friday night after the collapse of crunch peace talks with Houthi rebels who have seized control of much of the country.
The high-pressure negotiations, led by UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, saw chaotic scenes on Thursday as a Yemeni activist threw a shoe at a Houthi leader, sparking scuffles during a press conference. Another proposal called for deploying civilian observers to verify a cease-fire, he said.
“Unfortunately the Houthi delegation didn’t allow us to really reach all progress as we expected..”.
The group denies drawing military support from Shi’ite Iran and says it is waging a campaign against state corruption and Sunni Muslim al Qaeda militants who gained strength in the south during a 2011 uprising that spread anarchy and ousted Saleh.
Yemen’s Foreign Minister Riyadh Yassin Abdullah, who is allied to the elected President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, told reporters in Switzerland that the first round of talks had ended without an agreement, and that a date had not yet been set for a new round.
The mostly Shiite rebels have been fighting a range of local opponents in Yemen, including supporters of the internationally recognized government, which is in exile in Saudi Arabia.
He had met with the rebel delegation until 2:00 am (0000 GMT) Friday, and had “extremely constructive talks”, Fawzi said.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, intervened militarily out of concern for what it sees as a growing Iranian sway in the Arabian Peninsula, but air strikes have yet to significantly reverse Houthi territorial gains.
“I come out with a certain degree of optimism”, he said. They have so far refused to sit at the same table and continued on Friday to show no inclination for compromise.
Meanwhile, at least 12 civilians were killed in strikes by the Saudi-led alliance jets in Yemen’s far northern province of Saada, Yemen’s rebel-controlled official news agency Saba reported.
On Friday, a UN official Stephen O’Brien said in Geneva that there is a “looming humanitarian catastrophe” facing Yemen with at least 11.7 million people affected by the conflict and in need of $1.6 billion dollars in emergency aid.
The UN believes that some 21 million people, or 80 percent of Yemen’s population, are now in need of humanitarian assistance.
