GENEVA – Saudi Gazete June 15, 2015 – Yemeni Foreign Minister Riad Yassin said on Monday his government could discuss a limited ceasefire, but only if the Iran-backed Houthi militias withdrew from cities, released more than 6,000 prisoners and complied with a UN resolution.

Earlier UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon opened peace talks in Geneva with a call for a humanitarian ceasefire, saying Yemen was on the verge of a collapse that the Middle East could not withstand.

Yassin told reporters: “If they start complying with the UN resolution, release prisoners they are holding, more than 6,000, including the defense minister and others, if they withdraw from Aden and Taiz and other cities and stop killing innocent people, then you can discuss.”

Yassin, however, voiced pessimism as the high stakes talks got off to a stumbling start in Geneva. “I’m not very optimistic,” Yassin told AFP, lamenting that the Iran-backed Shiite “never respect any treaty.” “They don’t even bother to come,” he said.

The Houthi rebel delegation arrive midday on Tuesday. That pushed the face-to-face meetings back further, after the talks could not start Sunday as initially planned, due to delays after the rebels refused to board a UN-chartered plane.

Yassin also complained that the rebels had loaded their plane with far more representatives and advisers than had been agreed up.

“They want to come here to make chaos,” he said. Yassin on Monday compared the Houthis to ruthless militants from the Daesh (the so-called IS) group in Iraq and Syria and Boko Haram in Nigeria.

“The only difference is that they have got support from one country,” he said, pointing out that “The Houthis have got the support of Iran, and that is where (the whole) problem is coming from.”