SANAA, Yemen (AP), 29 Oct. 2016-  Yemen’s president in exile has turned down a U.N. peace deal aimed at ending the country’s devastating conflict, saying it “rewards” Yemen’s rebels.
The proposed peace deal gives Shiite rebels — who seized the capital in 2014 and eventually forced President Abed-Rabbo Mansour Hadi out of Yemen — a share in the future government. It also reduces some of the president’s powers in exchange for a rebel withdrawal from major cities.
Hadi made his remarks during a visit by the U.N. Envoy to Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, on Saturday.
“The Yemeni people have condemned these ideas and the so-called road map out of belief that the deal is a gateway to more suffering and war,” a statement by the presidency quoted Hadi as saying.
“The ideas presented … carry the seeds of war,” he added. “It rewards the coup leaders and punishes the Yemeni people at the same time.”
The statement said Hadi told Ahmed that peace is only attainable when the rebel “coup” is reversed, based on a U.N. Security Council resolution that stipulates the rebels must lay down their weapons and withdraw from cities as a precondition to any peace agreement.