Almotamar.net - President of the Supreme Political Council Saleh Al-Samad has affirmed that Yemen will positively deal with any peace initiative stopping the aggression against the country and preserving dignity of Yemenis.

In an interview with Reuters, Al-Sammad noted that peace initiatives inside the country are continuing but the warring parties with the aggression do not have the decision.

He praised the Central Bank of Yemen for its "mighty efforts" for economic stability at a time of conflict, and criticised attempts by the exiled government to cut the institution off from the outside world.

"We have not closed the door for peace or the door to negotiations," Sammad, an official of the dominant Iranian-allied Houthi movement, told Reuters in the interview.

"I believe there are serious international intentions to reach peace and we will do our best to take any chance to stop the aggression and lift the suffering from our Yemeni people."

U.N.-sponsored talks to end 18 months of fighting ended in failure this month and the Houthi movement and allied forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh resumed shelling attacks into Saudi Arabia, Yemen's large northern neighbour.

The talks petered out after the Houthis and Saleh's General People's Congress (GPC) announced the 10-member council on Aug 6., ignoring a warning by the U.N. Yemen envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed that such a unilateral move would violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions on how to solve the conflict.

Regarding new peace talks, Al- Sammad confirmed that position, explaining: "We are willing to deal positively with any initiative that is likely to lead to ending the aggression and lift the siege."

But Sammad said Riyadh had reneged on understandings reached earlier this year to observe a truce on the border in exchange for a cessation if air raids and preventing the fighters of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi from attacking Yemen from its territory.
"We were surprised that nothing of the sort had happened," Sammad said. "It is natural, when air strikes continue and when we have up to 100 raids a day ... and when we have no planes or the kind of deadly weapons they have, that Yemenis have the right to defend themselves," he said.

"We just want the Saudis to feel the kind of pain and sufferings that the Yemenis feel from the aggression," he said, explaining attacks from Yemen on Saudi territories. Yemen had no designs on Saudi territory, he said.

Sammad said the United Nations and a group of 18 nations that have backed U.N. talks to end the war had failed to persuade Saudi Arabia to let the Houthis sell oil stored in the Yemeni Red Sea port of Ras Isa to buy medicine and fuel supplies.

"This is a sovereign institution supported internationally and is not subject to bargaining from Hadi or those with him."