Sana’a - The United Nations envoy to Yemen Thursday met embattled President Abd Rabu Mansour Hadi to discuss peace talks with Houthi rebels who control the capital Sana'a.
Jamal Benomar said he hoped Hadi's resumption of his duties in the former southern capital Aden - after escaping house arrest at the hands of the Houthis in Sana'a - would “be a helpful factor in moving Yemen out of the current crisis.”
The envoy added he would shortly announce the location of a new round of talks. Hadi had called for the talks to continue in Aden or the central city of Taiz, which are not controlled by the mainly Shiite rebels.
Benomar's visit to Hadi in Aden comes after the UN Security Council and the Gulf Cooperation Council gave the president their backing.
The UN Security Council Wednesday called Hadi the “legitimate president” of Yemen and urged the country's rival political factions, including the Houthis, to resolve their disagreements through dialogue.
Hadi last week retracted his resignation, which he had tendered to parliament after the Houthis overran his residence in Sana'a and placed him under house arrest.
Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi meanwhile slammed Hadi in an uncompromising speech on his movement's al-Maseera television, saying that he had “lost his legitimacy” but was free to live anywhere in Yemen that he liked “as an ordinary citizen.”
Hadi's attempts to resume a political role would worsen the crisis, al-Houthi warned.
He charged that Hadi had been subservient to the US and Saudi Arabia as president and that other political parties were trying to draw foreign powers into Yemeni affairs and fan sectarian tension.
The Houthis have met increasing resistance in Sunni areas of central and eastern Yemen as they attempt to continue their expansion after taking Sana'a in September.
But al-Houthi said that clashes between his movement's fighters and army forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh in Sana'a on Tuesday had been unintentional.
Saleh has been accused of tacitly backing the expansion of the Houthis, and the UN has placed sanctions on him as well as on two Houthi military commanders.
Hadi has met a series of government officials and political leaders as well as the secretary general of the Gulf Cooperation Council since arriving in Aden, the capital of the former independent republic of South Yemen.
Militias loyal to the president are reported to control Aden and nearby southern areas as well as the former border crossings between the north and south.
Clashes meanwhile took place between army units and southern separatist fighters in the separatist stronghold of Radfan, north-east of Aden.
A security official, who declined to be named, said the separatists had threatened to execute 12 captive army officers and soldiers.
Earlier this month, the Houthis dissolved parliament and took over the government, triggering mass protests in Sana'a and central Yemeni cities.
The Houthis now control large parts of Yemen, a bastion of an active al-Qaeda offshoot.
Sapa-dpa