Yemen’s prez calls for cease-fire and rebel withdrawal

Yemen’s president is proposing a 15-day cease-fire that would coincide with the withdrawal of Shiite rebel militias from all government institutions and military installations and all cities and provinces even the province they call home.

President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi’s proposal, obtained on Friday by The Associated Press, was given to the UN envoy for Yemen in Saudi Arabia’s capital on Thursday, and Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed was heading to Oman yesterday to meet with Houthi representatives to discuss it, according to a UN diplomat. Yemen’s government has expressed support for a cease-fire in the past, but this might be its first formal proposal for one.