|
Sana'a: Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said that four-year war between troops and Al Houthi rebels has ended and it would never come back again.
"The war which was in some districts of Sa'ada has ended three days ago, and it will never come back again," Saleh told about 6,000 school boys and girls, who started summer vacation in Sana'a on Thursday.
Saleh blamed the rebels for the destruction of the province of Sa'ada.
"The sacrifices we offered in that war was because of the extremism, ignorance, illiteracy and backwardness of the rebels who destroyed Sa'ada province," he said.
Not all the sons of Al Houthi were with the sabotage acts, there was only one or so, said Saleh in his speech referring to the Sana'a-based sons of Al Houthi.
Last week, Abdullah Hussain Al Houthi, son of the slain rebel leader, called the rebels to surrender in statements published by official daily Al Thawrah.
The daily said that the young man, who is in his 20s, came over to their office by his own.
"My advice for the rebels is that the rebels must surrender to the state without conditions, and there should be a peaceful solution," the daily quoted Abdullah Al Houthi, who lives in Sana'a with some family members at the expense of the government, as saying.
A day before Saleh's speech about the ambiguous and unilateral announcement of the end of the war, the country's highest security committee called upon the displaced people from war-stricken areas in Sa'ada, Harf Sufyan, and Bani Hushaish, to come back to their houses and farms.
Accusing the opposition forces of using racism and sectarianism in politics, Saleh said: "Dialogue is much better than bloodshed, violence, and illegal demonstrations."
Anniversary
The opposition politicians accused Saleh of celebrating partition by celebrating July 17, the day on which Saleh took power in 1978 as president of north Yemen.
"The celebration of July 17 is a failed attempt to convince the Yemeni people and the outside world that Yemen was created for the president. In fact, Yemenis want a president for Yemen, not Yemen for the president," said Mohammad Al Sabri, leading Nasserite politician from the opposition alliance of the Islamists, Socialists and Nasserites.
Saleh, 66, has been in power for 30 years.
|
