Yemeni rebels signal openness to peace talks with Saudis

SANAA — Yemen's Shiite Houthi rebels on Monday confirmed carrying out a prisoner exchange with Saudi Arabia and said they were open to negotiating a peace deal with the Saudi-led coalition that has been fighting them for a year.

"We will not turn our backs on any understandings or initiatives that could lead to the halt of aggression and lifting the suffering from the Yemeni people," Saleh Al Sammad, head of the Houthis' political wing, said in a statement posted on his official Facebook page.

He said the exchange of a captive Saudi army officer for seven fighters earlier this month came as part of an "initial and preliminary" stage of negotiations, which would be followed by "gradual steps" if Riyadh is willing to pursue a deal that would halt its operations.

Saudi Arabia announced the swap last week without mentioning the Houthis' involvement.

The war pits the Houthis, who control the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, against an internationally-recognised government largely confined to the southern city of Aden. The government is backed by a loose array of militias as well as the coalition of mainly Gulf Arab countries.

The fighting has killed more than 6,000 people and pushed the Arab world’s poorest country to the brink of famine. The battle lines have hardly shifted in recent months.

A powerful Al Qaeda affiliate has meanwhile exploited the chaos to seize a large swath of territory across the country’s south and east, while an upstart Daesh branch has carried out a series of attacks targeting government forces and the Houthis.

Both groups maintain strongholds in Aden, the first city to be fully taken back from the Houthis and the de facto capital of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi’s government. The extremists’ growing presence in the city has embarrassed the government and raised questions about its ability to govern the country. In recent days the coalition has begun carrying out air strikes against the two groups, causing thousands of residents to flee.

The conflict is widely seen as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and its regional rival Iran, which supports the Houthis. The Houthis have always denied receiving weapons from Iran, and have recently expressed anger with Tehran, accusing it of exploiting the conflict for its own ends.

Earlier on Monday, an Emirati fighter jet suffered a “technical malfunction” and crashed near Aden, killing the plane’s two pilots, the state-run Saudi Press Agency said.

Amateur video and photos posted on a local news website showed onlookers rifling through the debris and standing on a piece of the Mirage fighter’s distinctive triangle-shaped wing.

The UAE’s state-run WAM news agency earlier announced the “loss of a fighter aircraft”, without reporting the pilots’ deaths.

The seven-emirate nation has dispatched its fighter jets in strikes targeting Scud missiles in Yemen, as well as Houthi camps, air defence systems and other military targets, WAM has previously reported. The news agency has said 30 jets from the UAE are taking part in the strikes.

In December, a Bahraini pilot flying for the Saudi-led coalition survived a jet crash along the kingdom’s southern border.