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| Arabia |
| Houthi rebels absent as Yemeni parties gather in Riyadh |
| 2015-05-18 |
| [AlAhram] Yemen's exiled President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi was to open a conference of political parties from his war-torn country on Sunday but Iran-backed Huthi Iranian catspaws are boycotting the talks. The Huthis, who are fighting forces loyal to Hadi and have seized large parts of the country including the capital, want talks to be held in Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... and are staying away from the meeting of about 400 delegates in Riyadh. The Huthis have long complained of marginalisation and fought six wars with the central government between 2004 and 2010, before launching a sweeping advance from their northern stronghold last year. Their southward push forced Hadi to flee to Riyadh and prompted a Saudi-led coalition to launch air strikes against the Huthis, who are allied with fighters loyal to former president President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... . The Riyadh talks start on the final day of a five-day truce proposed by Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... to let vital humanitarian aid into Yemen. Despite the pause, festivities between rebels and pro-government forces have continued on the ground. Although the Huthis are not participating, Saleh's General People's Congress party "has many of its leaders taking part", Abdulaziz al-Jaber, head of the conference's organising committee, told news hounds on Saturday. He said, however, that "we will not deal with" Saleh or others facing international sanctions. Saleh, who led the country until 2011, has been on United Nations ...an organization conceived in the belief that we're just one big happy world, with the sort of results you'd expect from such nonsense... and US sanctions lists since November. Jaber said the three-day meeting is "not a dialogue" but a decision-making conference. "What will happen in Riyadh is an announcement of an agreement that will be binding on all parties present in Riyadh," he said. Among the goals of the meeting is working towards a constitution which would be presented to the Yemeni people, "and to hold a referendum to put the results of the dialogue into practice," Jaber said. "We reassure the people that restoring the state is inevitable." About 1,600 people, many of them civilians, have been killed since late March and more than 6,200 others have been injured, while around 450,000 Yemenis are internally displaced because of the war, according to the United Nations. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |