A coalition bombing rebels in Yemen for more than two months will continue until a UN resolution calling for a rebel pullback takes effect, Qatar's foreign minister said on Thursday. Khalid al-Attiyah spoke after chairing a meeting of his counterparts from the six-nation Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC). "The coalition will not be over without the application of the related Security Council resolutions and especially the Resolution 2216," Attiyah told reporters. That resolution, issued in April, calls on the Huthis to relinquish territory they have seized.
It asks all parties, particularly the Huthis, to adhere to measures including the outcome of an earlier "national dialogue" tasked with drawing up a new constitution. Yemen's warring factions are to meet for UN-sponsored talks in Geneva starting on Sunday. "Our brothers in Yemen assured us" that talks will take place within the framework of the Security Council resolutions, the national dialogue outcomes and a GCC initiative, Attiyah said.
Analysts say the Saudi intervention aimed to prevent the Sunni-dominated kingdom's regional rival, Shiite Iran, from gaining a foothold on its southern border. More than 2,000 people have died in the air strikes and fighting on the ground between pro- and anti-government forces, according to the United Nations. On the Saudi side of the frontier at least 37 people, most of them armed forces members but also civilians, have been killed in border skirmishes and shelling. Saudi Arabia's air force chief, Lieutenant General Mohammed bin Ahmed al-Shaalan, died on Wednesday of a heart attack, the ministry of defence announced. In a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency, it said his death came "during a working trip outside the kingdom".