Yemen foreign minister: Yemen's problem is ex- President Saleh not Houthi rebels

Yemen’s Foreign Minister, Riyad Yassin Abdullah expressed that Yemen’s main problem is not Shia Houthi fighters who have taken control of much of the country, but their ally, former President Ali Abdullah Saleh whose troops are better trained and armed.

Abdullah said there could be no future role for Saleh or his family in Yemen, while the Houthis could only play a part if they laid down their arms.

Abdullah was speaking in an interview in the Saudi capital Riyadh, where he and President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi have settled after they fled Aden last week when Aden, the last Yemeni city under Hadi’s control, came under attack by the Houthis.

Seven nights of air strikes by a Saudi-led coalition have targeted heavy weapons, ballistic missiles and other equipment held by both the Houthis and Saleh’s forces, but failed to stop them advancing from the central city of Taiz to the Arabian Sea.

The Yemeni Foreign Minister on Tuesday asked Arab states to send ground troops to help secure Aden, but he stated that ‘any decision on whether or how that happened would lie with the Saudi-led coalition and was still being studied’.

‘The main thing now is if Ali Abdullah Saleh forces stop fighting with them, I think they [Houthis] will start to retreat. Our main problem now is not al- Houthis. They are few, they have only light weapons’, Abdullah said.

A member of Houthis political bureau, Mohammed al-Houthi Bukhaiti said on Wednesday that fighting in Aden and other cities is not a result of Houthis advances, but because of local forces loyal to Saleh, including the Republican Guards that are shelling troops and residential areas loyal to the government.

Abdullah said: ‘for [ex] President Saleh, his family, there should not be any role. This is now the end of it after what he has done to our people and our country’.

He added that Iran-allied Houthis could only participate in a dialogue once they return to their northern heartland around Saadeh, surrender weapons and become a purely political party.

He said that ‘although the only forces in Aden still loyal to the Saudi-backed Hadi are from local militias, some parts of the army continue to back him elsewhere including the eastern province of Hadramawt and near Marib’.