Qatari committee resumes talks with rebels

A Qatari committee returned to Sa’ada in the north of Yemen to resume talks with the rebels, official sources said Thursday. 

Talks between the Yemeni government and al-Houthi followers dealt with a four-year long armed rebellion. It is reported that a brokered deal had reached a deadlock last week.

Qatari Deputy Foreign Minister, Saif Abu al-Ainayn, will chair the Qatari committee that will resume talks with al-Houthi Thursday, according to remarks published Thursday. 

The Qatari and Yemeni presidential committee, which includes five representatives for al-Houthi, in charge of supervising the implementation of the Qatari-brokered deal, came back to Sana’a earlier in the week without achieving any concrete results. 

Abdul Janadi, a reporter from Yemeni committee, said they had come back to Sana’a only for “consultations because al-Houthis refused to come down from the mountains”.

The rebel leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said, however, that the Qataris had left Sa’ada after reaching a deadlock because “the government refused to pull out the troops from the villages, schools and mosques”.

The Yemeni government has repeatedly insisted on reaching a solution for the armed rebellion and has expressed great interest in the framework of the Qatari initiative.   

“New steps will be taken over the few coming days for ending rebellion, saving blood and bringing peace,” the official source said, commenting on the return of the Qatari committee to Sa’ada.

Before their return, Abdul Kareem al-Iryani, the political advisor President Ali Abdullah Saleh, showed confidence in the Qatari mediation to end the armed rebellion and bring peace to Sa’ada.

“Those who are in doubt about the mediation do not know what is actually happening on the ground. The problem has historic, political and sectarian roots. It cannot be solved merely by signing the Doha deal,” said al-Iryani, who was among those who signed the deal for Yemeni government in Doha last year. 

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