Dozens dead in Yemen clashes as Saleh snubs negotiations

At least 55 people have died in two days of fierce clashes between pro-government forces and Houthi rebels in Yemen, security and health officials said.

Seventy others were wounded in the fighting that raged across Taiz, Bayda and Marib, the officials confirmed on the condition of anonymity.

The clashes come just days after former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh - a key ally of the Houthi rebels - maintained he would not recognise the Saudi-backed government of Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi while categorically refusing to attend negotiations in Saudi Arabia.

“We won’t go to Saudi Arabia to sign a peace deal even if the war continued to years,” Saleh said in statements on Saturday cited by the website of his General People’s Congress party.

“If [Saudis] want to hold a dialogue with our party and the Houthis, they can come to Kuwait,” he said.

Saleh, who was forced out of power after a popular uprising during the Arab Spring of 2011, said he had provided an initiative to both warring parties attempting solve the conflict at the Kuwait-based peace talks.

On Wednesday, the rebel delegation said it would not sign up to any deal on military and security issues until there was agreement on a consensus president and a national unity government to oversee the transition.

The peace roadmap put forward by UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed proposed the formation of a unity government in tandem with the withdrawal and disarmament of the rebels, although he acknowledged major differences between the two sides’ timetables.

Despite a 15-month Saudi-led military intervention in support of the government of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, the rebels and their allies remain in control of swathes of territory they have overran since 2014, including the capital Sanaa.

More than 6,400 people have been killed since the intervention began, the majority of them civilians, and there has been growing international pressure for an end to the conflict.