Former president Ali Abdullah Saleh called on Friday on all Yemenis to return to political dialogue to find a way to end the country’s spiraling conflict.
Saleh’s loyalists have been fighting alongside Iranian-allied Houthi rebels who toppled the central government, and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry put the onus for peacemaking on the Houthis and their supporters to cease fire.
Saleh also called for talks between Yemenis and Saudi Arabia, which has led a nearly month-long bombing campaign against the Shi’ite Muslim Houthi militia, to be held under United Nations auspices in Geneva.
Saudi-led coalition warplanes continue to target the positions of the Houthis and Saleh loyalists despite announcing an end to the campaign it began a month ago with the goal of helping restore President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
“I call on all conflicting parties in all provinces to stop fighting and return to dialogue in all provinces,” Saleh, who was forced from power by months of mass protests in 2011, said in an emailed statement.
He also urged the Houthis to accept an April 13 U.N. Security Council resolution calling on them to drop their weapons and quit cities they have seized, after Saudi-led forces stop their intervention in Yemen.
