Yemen's president said Thursday he is handing his powers to a new leadership council, in a major shake-up in the coalition battling Houthi rebels as a fragile ceasefire takes hold.
But Huthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam dismissed the move as "a desperate attempt to rearrange the ranks of the mercenaries" fighting in Yemen, and said peace would only come once foreign forces leave.
President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi made the announcement in a televised statement on the final day of Yemen talks held in the Saudi capital Riyadh.
"I irreversibly delegate to this presidential leadership council my full powers," he said.
Saudi Arabia said it welcomed Hadi's announcement and pledged $3 billion in aid and support for its war-torn neighbour, some of it to be paid by the United Arab Emirates.
Hadi's internationally recognised government has been locked in conflict with the Iran-backed Huthis, who control the capital Sanaa and most of the north despite a Saudi-led military intervention launched in 2015.
Hadi has been based in Saudi Arabia since fleeing to the kingdom that year as rebel forces closed in on his last redoubt, the southern port city of Aden.
A United Nations-brokered truce that took effect last Saturday — the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan — has offered a glimmer of hope in the conflict which has triggered what the UN calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
The truce came as discussions on Yemen were unfolding in Riyadh without the participation of the Huthis, who refused to attend talks on "enemy" territory.
"The path to peace is by stopping the aggression, lifting the siege, and taking the foreign forces out of the country," said Abdulsalam, the Huthi spokesman.
