The UN-brokered Yemen peace talks have been extended for one week following a request by the UN special envoy, the foreign ministry of host nation Kuwait said yesterday.
The negotiations have now been extended until August 7, according to a foreign ministry statement cited by the official Kuna news agency.
They would have ended without result yesterday after the government delegation decided to pull out.
United Nations envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed held talks with both delegations yesterday and proposed a framework for a comprehensive settlement.
“I met today with both delegations (and) suggested a one-week extension to the talks,” Ould Cheikh Ahmed wrote on Twitter.
He said he also proposed a “framework for a solution to the crisis in Yemen”, without elaborating.
Sources from the two delegations said the proposed settlement is based on the withdrawal of rebels from territory they occupied in 2014, the handover of weapons and a return of state institutions.
Yemen’s government delegation to the talks had said it was planning on leaving Kuwait yesterday after the rebels and their allies announced the creation of a council to run the country.
“There can be no more talks after the new coup,” delegation spokesman Mohamed al-Emrani said on Friday.
The Houthi rebels and the General People’s Congress of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh on Thursday jointly announced setting up a 10-member “supreme political council”.
Its job will be to “manage state affairs politically, militarily, economically, administratively, socially and in security”, a statement said.
The six-nation Gulf Co-operation Council and the ambassadors of 18 other nations backing peace in Yemen also called for a resumption of peace talks in separate statements.
Indirect negotiations in Kuwait since April have failed to make much headway so far.
Most of the discussions focused on the type of the transition government to run Yemen.
Meanwhile, a police officer was killed yesterday when a bomb blew up his car in Yemen’s second city Aden, a security official said.
Further east, gunmen on a motorbike shot dead an officer in the town of Shibam in Hadramawt province, a military official said.

GCC expresses ‘deep concern’

Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) members states have expressed “deep concern” over the  move  by Houthis and followers of Ali Abdullah Saleh forming a political council in Yemen and claiming that it will have all the political, military, security, economic and social powers, in addition to managing state’s affairs. GCC secretary-general Dr Abdullatif bin Rashid al-Zayani stressed that signing the agreement on the formation of such political council is a clear violation of the decisions of the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation, Security Council resolution 2216, the Gulf initiative and outputs a comprehensive national dialogue. He said the GCC states believed that the move would put obstacles before reaching a political agreement. GCC states considers such step to be undermining the international community’s efforts to find a political solution through consultations and in accordance with the agreed terms of reference represented in the Gulf initiative, the outputs of the national dialogue and Security Council resolution No 2216, he said.