Ban Ki-moon opens Yemen talks as Saudi-led planes bomb capital

The UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, launched Yemen peace talks in Geneva on Monday with a call for a humanitarian truce after warplanes from a Saudi-led Arab coalition pounded the Houthi-controlled capital, Sanaa, overnight.

More than 2,600 people have been killed since the coalition began military operations in March to stop the Iranian-backed Houthi militia moving on Aden and to shore up embattled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, then in the southern city.

Mr Ban said the truce, called to mark the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan later this week, should last for at least two weeks to allow life-saving supplies into the country.

“Today Yemen’s very existence hangs in the balance. While the parties bicker, Yemen burns,” he told reporters.

However, Yemeni Foreign Minister Reyad Yassin Abdulla dismissed the possibility of any ceasefire soon.

“If they (the Houthis) are still occupying Yemen, they are still killing innocent people, if they are still destroying everything, what kind of ceasefire?” Abdulla said in Geneva.

But he said his exiled government might consider a “limited” truce if the Houthis agreed to withdraw from cities, including Aden and Taiz, and free more than 6,000 prisoners.

Representatives of Hadi’s government were in Geneva for the talks, but a plane carrying delegates from Sanaa, including the Houthis’ Ansarullah group, had to land in Djibouti after what Yemeni political sources said was Egypt’s refusal to give the plane overflight rights.

The plane left Djibouti late in the evening for Geneva, Yemeni political sources in Sanaa said.

“It is clear this was a result of Saudi pressure on Egypt and Sudan to block the delegation and humiliate them,” Seif al-Washli, an adviser to the Houthi team, told Reuters in Geneva.

Egyptian civil aviation officials denied Cairo had any objections to the Houthi delegation using its airspace.

The Geneva talks are expected to last for two to three days. - (Reuters)