LONDON — Yemeni Foreign Minister Riyadh Yaseen on Sunday rejected a call for talks issued by ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh. Saleh, whose loyalists have been fighting alongside Houthi rebels, on Friday called on all Yemenis to return to political dialogue to find a way to end the country's spiraling conflict. “These calls are unacceptable after all the destruction Ali Abdullah Saleh has caused. There can be no place for Saleh in any future political talks,” Yaseen told a London news conference. “There will be no deal with the Houthis whatsoever until they withdraw from areas under their control,” such as the Yemeni capital, Sanaa. Yaseen said there would be no need for the coalition to deploy ground troops in Yemen because 70 percent of Yemen was not under Houthi or Saleh's control. Meanwhile, a new UN envoy was looking to kickstart peace talks in Yemen. The United Nations on Saturday confirmed Mauritanian diplomat Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed as the new special envoy to Yemen. Ould Cheikh Ahmed “will work closely with the members of the United Nations Security Council, the Gulf Cooperation Council, governments in the region and other partners, as well as the United Nations country team for Yemen,” a UN statement said. In a related development, a group of tribal fighters in the strategically important central Yemeni city of Taiz on Sunday took back several districts from the Houthi militias. — Agencies
