Yemen sets timetable for rebels to implement truce terms

Yemen set a timetable for Shiite rebels to implement its terms for a ceasefire in their six-year-old uprising in northern mountains yesterday, as 28 deaths were reported in fresh clashes.

The details of the timetable have been transmitted to rebel leader Abdul Malak al-Huthi through a go-between, presidential adviser Abdul Karim al-Ariani told reporters in the capital Sanaa.

"After the agreement by the Huthis to the six conditions, the high security committee has drawn up an implementation timetable which will be overseen by five parliamentary committees," Ariani said.

He said representatives of the Zaidi Shiite rebels, known as Huthis, would be co-opted onto the five committees.

"If they agree to it and sign it, the war will end immediately," he said.

At the end of last month, the rebels offered to accept the five conditions originally set by the government for a ceasefire.

Those were a withdrawal from government buildings, reopening of roads in the north, return of weapons seized from security services, freeing of all prisoners, including Saudis, and abandoning military posts in the mountains.

But the government rejected the offer, saying the rebels also needed to accept a sixth key condition - a promise to stop attacking Saudi territory.

The rebels say they have withdrawn from all of the Saudi territory they occupied after border clashes in November but are continuing to come under Saudi attack inside Yemen.

They said last Thursday Saudi air raids had killed 14 people, including women and children.

Ariani said the first move expected from the Huthi rebels was the reopening of the main trunk routes into their stronghold in Saada province on the Saudi border.