Yemen’s president in exile has turned down a UN peace deal aimed at ending the country’s devastating conflict, saying it “rewards” Yemen’s rebels.
The proposed peace deal gives Shiite rebels — who seized the capital in 2014 and eventually forced President Abed-Rabbo Mansour Hadi out of Yemen — a share in the future government. It also reduces some of the president’s powers in exchange for a rebel withdrawal from major cities.
Hadi made his remarks during a visit by the UN Envoy to Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, on Saturday.
“The Yemeni people have condemned these ideas and the so-called road map out of belief that the deal is a gateway to more suffering and war,” a statement by the presidency quoted Hadi as saying.
“The ideas presented ... carry the seeds of war,” he added. “It rewards the coup leaders and punishes the Yemeni people at the same time.”
The statement said Hadi told Ahmed that peace is only attainable when the rebel “coup” is reversed, based on a UN Security Council resolution that stipulates the rebels must lay down their weapons and withdraw from cities as a precondition to any peace agreement.
A presidency official told The Associated Press that Hadi has come under heavy international pressures to accept the deal. He said that ambassadors of the United States, France, China and Russia have held meetings with Hadi and his prime minister in the past 24 hours to press him to accept the deal. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
The conflict in Yemen has left more than 10,000 dead and injured and displaced nearly 3 million people. 
Saudi Arabia has yet to comment on the UN envoy’s latest proposal and the rebels have yet to respond.
Saudi Arabia led an Arab Coalition to intervene in March 2015 to restore Hadi’s internationally recognized government after Houthi rebels and forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh overran Sanaa and other cities in December 2014.
Hadi fled the armed advance and has been a guest of Saudi Arabia ever since. A UN Security Council resolution a month later recognized him as the legitimate head of state and called on the Houthis to disarm and quit Yemen’s main cities. But the Houthis and their allies in Yemen’s army have said he will never return.
The conflict in Yemen has killed at least 10,000 people and unleashed one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. 

Source: Arab News