Shia rebels and their allies Thursday formed a 10-member "supreme council" to run Yemen, in what the government condemned as a blow to already stalled UN-brokered peace talks. UN special envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed said the move "contravenes" the rebels' commitment to the peace process and "represents a grave violation" of the UN Security Council Resolution 2216.
The Shia Huthi rebels and the General People's Congress of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh have agreed to "form a supreme political council of 10 members", according to a statement carried by a rebel-run news agency. It did not name the council's members. "The aim is to unify efforts to confront the aggression by Saudi Arabia and its allies," the statement said in reference to the Riyadh-led Arab coalition that launched a military campaign against the rebels in March last year in support of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.
The job of the council will be to "manage state affairs politically, militarily, economically, administratively, socially and in security". Ould Cheikh Ahmed who has been brokering 100 days of talks aimed at a peaceful settlement said the move endangered the negotiations being held in Kuwait. "This is a clear violation of the Yemeni constitution" as well as Resolution 2216, he said in a statement released in Kuwait. The resolution calls on the Huthis to withdraw from territories they occupied in 2014, to hand over their arms and return state institutions to the legitimate government.