Absence Of Southern Transitional Council Destined Yemen Consultations To Failure - Source

The absence of the Southern Transitional Council, and southern representation, at the consultations on Yemen in Geneva destined them to failure, a source in the Southern Transitional Council told Sputnik on Saturday.

GENEVA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 08th September, 2018) The absence of the Southern Transitional Council, and southern representation, at the consultations on Yemen in Geneva destined them to failure, a source in the Southern Transitional Council told Sputnik on Saturday.

On Friday, Russian Ambassador to Yemen Vladimir Dedushkin said at a press briefing that Yemen's south was a key region of the country, which must be involved in the peace settlement.

"Unfortunately, we have not been involved in the talks in Geneva, and we predicted a failure in advance for those talks which confined themselves to the legitimate forces of President [Abd Rabbuh Mansur] Hadi's faction in the General People's Congress and the political parties led by ... Ansar Allah, the Houthis," the source said.

He stated that the Southern Transitional Council could alone represent issues concerning the south of Yemen.

"The Southern Transitional Council represents the largest and most powerful force of all the southern spectrum and we claim that we alone are the largest force, which has an institutional system and adopts institutional work through the present and effective bodies on all the geography of the south and to avoid this reality will make these talks blind," the source said.

He added that the talks had not been designed with the proper foundations in mind.

"The talks are reeling because they are based on incorrect foundations and when we are invited, we will definitely announce before we participate," the source said.

The ongoing fierce conflict between the Yemeni government headed by Hadi and the Shia Houthi rebels resulted in the rise of the southern Yemeni separatists, which engaged in clashes with the government's troops earlier this year.