UN Says Yemen Parties Agree on Transitional Council

Local Editor

Yemeni Parliament

Yemen's parties agreed on a "people's transitional council" to help govern the country and guide it out of a political crisis, U.N. mediator Jamal Benomar announced on Friday.

"This progress is not a (final) agreement, but an important breakthrough that paves the way towards a comprehensive agreement," Benomar said in a statement.

As part of the new formula, Yemen's old 301-member house of representatives, made up overwhelmingly of MPs from the former ruling party thought to be sympathetic to the Houthis, will stay in place.

Instead of the traditional upper house, a new transitional council - whose numbers were not specified - will consist of traditionally unrepresented sectors among Yemen's formerly independent South, women and young people.

Together the two bodies will make legislation guiding Yemen's transition.

Arrangements for the vacated presidency and ministries along with security required further dialogue, Benomar added.

There was no immediate comment by the Ansarullah movement or the two other Islamist and socialist opposition parties.

Yemen has remained in a state of turmoil since a popular uprising in 2011 led to the ouster of ex-President Ali Abdullah Saleh one year later.

Regional power house Saudi Arabia along with the United States have both closed their embassies in Sanaa and fear the political vacuum may empower al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen and even fuel a full-blown sectarian civil war.

Al-Qaeda terrorist organization is deployed in Yemen's southern provinces, where its gunmen plot for terrorist attacks against civilians and officials.

In recent months, Ansarullah movement, also dubbed as Houthis, have liberated the capital Sanaa from operatives of al-Qaeda last September, and worked to restore security and stability in the attack-hit areas.

The powerful group issued the Constitutional Declaration, in a bid to avoid the power vacuum in the country following the resignation of President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi and his prime minister.