Rebuffing UN demands, Danon says no ‘immunity to terrorists’

Kurdish forces: We will not withdraw from west of the Euphrates

Kurdish forces are refusing to withdraw from areas west of the Euphrates River, saying that Turkey is trying to remove them from northern Syria, according to Kurdish media site Rudaw.

“The Turkish intervention in Jarablus is a hostile intervention. Its main goal, more than ISIS, is the Kurds,” says Redur Xelil, spokesperson for the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG).

“Our forces are part of the SDF [Syrian Democratic Forces] and we insist on our mission and goal. We won’t listen to the demands of Turkey or powers outside of Turkey. Turkey cannot impose its own agenda, its own interests on us. Our forces are there. We will not withdraw from west of the Euphrates. No one has the right to ask the YPG to leave the area,” he adds.

The decision goes against a request by US Vice President Joe Biden, who called on the Kurdish forces to leave areas they liberated west of the Euphrates River. The US made a commitment to Ankara before the operation to liberate the northern Syrian city of Manbij, Rudaw reports.

Romanian death toll in Italy earthquake up to 5

Romania’s foreign ministry says that five Romanians have died, and 11 are missing in the earthquake in Italy, updating earlier figures.

Ionut Valcu, foreign ministry spokesman, said Thursday that four Romanians were being treated for injuries in hospitals. He did not provide details on the identity of those who died or were injured.

Romania consular officials have traveled to the area, are visiting the hospitals and are in touch with the families of those affected. Earlier, officials said two Romanians had died and eight were missing.

Media reports say some 8,000 Romanians live in the area in central Italy where the quake struck early Wednesday.

— AP

Woman drives into Ramle bakery

A woman accidentally crashes her car into a bakery in the central city of Ramle.

Security footage of the incident shows the vehicle smashing into the store and the driver and passenger emerging from the car.

The driver claims she went into forward drive by mistake when she was trying to reverse.

No one was injured in the incident.

Record numbers at Ben Gurion airport

Ben Gurion airport is expecting today to be its busiest ever with more travelers passing through the transit port than on other other day before.

More than 86,100 travelers will pass through the airport on 497 incoming and outgoing flights, the Israel Airport Authority says.

More than 2 million people are expected to fly in and out of Ben Gurion on international flights during the month of August, making it the most-traveled month ever.

Assange warns of forthcoming ‘significant’ Clinton leaks

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is warning that his organization will release new documents concerning Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, which could be “significant” for the election.

Speaking to Fox News on Wednesday, Assange, who has been sheltering in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012 while fighting extradition, says WikiLeaks was combing through thousands of pages of material.

A variety of documents from various institutions that are associated with the election campaign had yielded “some quite unexpected angles, that are quite interesting, some even entertaining,” he says.

Assange reports the documents would “absolutely” be released before the November 8 election. Asked whether the leaks would be a game changer for the vote, Assange said: “I think it’s significant. It depends on how it catches fire in the public and in the media.”

Ahead of the Democratic National Convention last month, WikiLeaks released nearly 20,000 emails gleaned by hackers who apparently raided the accounts of seven DNC leaders.

— AFP

China says its military will train Syrian troops

China’s military will provide training for Syrian armed forces, a spokesman for Beijing’s defense ministry says.

“The Chinese military will provide the Syrian side with medical and nursing professional training,” defence ministry spokesman Wu Qian tells reporters at a monthly briefing.

The training will take place in China, he adds, and is intended “to ease the humanitarian crisis in Syria.”

Beijing is a longstanding backer of the Syrian government of Bashar Assad, which has engaged in a bloody war that has left more than 290,000 people dead and displaced millions since it began in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government demonstrations.

Last week senior Chinese military official Guan Youfei met with Syria’s defence minister in Damascus and said he wanted closer military ties with the Syrian government, state media reported.

The Chinese military has already provided Syrian authorities with medical equipment and medicines “to help reduce the humanitarian suffering of the Syrian people,” Wu said.

— AFP

‘Queen of Knitwear’ Sonia Rykiel dies at 86

Sonia Rykiel, the French fashion designer known as the Queen of Knitwear, died on Thursday at the age of 86 after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease.

“My mother died at 5:00 this morning at her home in Paris from the effects of Parkinson’s,” her daughter Nathalie Rykiel says.

Rykiel, the eldest of five daughters of a Russian Jewish immigrant family, was a fixture in the industry for half a century, launching her own fashion house in 1968 buoyed by the Swinging Sixties craze in London and the emerging feminist movement. Her easy-to-wear “chic,” iconic stripes and bright colors quickly came to typify a new generation of liberated women.

“She invented not just a style but an attitude, a way of living and being, and offered a freedom of movement,” President Francois Hollande says in a tribute.

She had made her breakthrough in 1962 with the so-called Poor Boy Sweater, a garment designed for women that had long sleeves and a shorter, fitted shape. Over the decades, she branched out into other branches of fashion, but always remained true to knitwear, with fluid, innovative shapes.

— AFP

Attacks across Baghdad kill 13, Iraqi officials say

Iraqi officials say a series of bombings and shootings across the Iraqi capital has killed 13 people and wounded 24.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks. The violence comes as Iraqi forces are pushing to retake a small town from the Islamic State group south of Mosul, the country’s second-largest city that is still in IS hands.

The police say separate roadside bombings on busy commercial streets in northern and southern Baghdad killed five and wounded 17 on Thursday. Two sticky bombs attached to cars just south and east of Baghdad killed two and wounded seven.

And three shootings in different Baghdad neighborhoods killed six people.

Police and hospital officials confirmed the casualty toll, speaking on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to talk to reporters.

— AP

Egypt to free lawyer after 3 months in solitary

An Egyptian court has ordered the release of a prominent rights lawyer held in solitary confinement for the past three months after he challenged in court a decision by the country’s president to hand over two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia.

Thursday’s decision to free Malek Adly — who hasn’t been formally charged but remains incarcerated since his May arrest on a rolling series of administrative detention orders — could still be appealed by prosecutors.

Adly has been jailed with almost no communication with the outside world, sleeping on a bare floor in conditions that his lawyers say amount to torture.

Supporters say that he was a victim of a personal vendetta after he essentially insulted Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi in a televised interview.

— AP

Spanish municipality rescinds BDS resolution following legal action

The Spanish municipality of Velez Malaga says it will rescind a resolution it recently passed in support of boycotting Israel – which it had called an apartheid state.

The decision to cancel the resolution comes in the wake of legal action against the municipality.

A spokesperson for the local government of the Spanish holiday destination tells ACOM, a pro-Israel lobby group that in recent years has secured more than 20 rulings against boycott initiatives, that Velez Malaga will scrap in the near future the motion its city council passed in May in favor of the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, or BDS. Home to over 70,000 people, Velez Malaga is part of the Costa del Sol area, which attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists from across Europe and beyond.

The announcement comes after a court in Malaga on Tuesday issued an injunction that rendered the resolution ineffective on grounds that is violates constitutional principles guaranteeing equality and proscribing incitement to discrimination.

Some 50 Spanish municipalities have passed resolutions in recent years endorsing BDS — more than in any other European country. But, echoing belatedly the judicial policy of courts in neighboring France, the Spanish judiciary has cracked down on BDS in recent years, as part of an effort to make judges more independent and amid growing resentment toward BDS promoters whose actions are perceived as counterproductive to efforts aimed at rehabilitating Spain’s ailing economy.

— JTA

Oil prices hit reverse again

World oil prices drop, reversing earlier gains as traders dwelled on rising US crude stockpiles and the stronger dollar.

At 1145 GMT, US benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for delivery in October sagged 22 cents at $46.55 per barrel.

Brent North Sea crude for October delivery lost 20 cents to $48.85 a barrel compared with the close on Wednesday.

“It is the aftershocks of yesterday’s disappointing oil report and the strengthening of US dollar that are helping to apply renewed downward pressure on crude prices,” City Index analyst Fawad Razaqzada told AFP.

The stronger greenback makes dollar-priced crude more expensive for buyers using weaker currencies.

— AFP

Kerry in Saudi Arabia for talks on Yemen, Syria and Libya

US Secretary of State John Kerry is meeting with Saudi King Salman in the Red Sea city of Jiddah ahead of talks focusing on the conflicts in Yemen, Syria and Libya with other Gulf Arab officials.

At the start of Thursday’s roughly half-hour meeting, the king and Kerry spoke briefly about the monarch’s health and an operation he had in the US, apparently for back pain. It was not clear when the surgery was performed.

Kerry is also holding a meeting to exchange ideas about the war in Yemen and stalled peace talks with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, British Under Secretary at the Foreign Office Tobias Ellwood, UN special envoy for Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, and the United Arab Emirates’ Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

— AP

Adelson’s anti-BDS group confirms it didn’t fund controversial poster campaign

The David Horowitz Freedom Center, a conservative foundation based in Los Angeles, confirms it did not use funds from a task force grant to pay for the controversial campaign poster campaign targeting pro-Palestinian student activists as “Jew haters” and terrorists’ allies, rejecting reports in a major newspaper.

“Earlier this week a surprising report surfaced in the media that a modest grant approved by the Maccabee Task Force to the David Horowitz Freedom Center had been used to fund a poster campaign that targeted student activists. The Maccabee Task Force never authorized or approved such a poster campaign. And the David Horowitz Freedom Center has since confirmed that it never used our funds for this campaign. In short, the newspaper report was completely false,” the statement says.

The Maccabee Task Force issued a disavowal of the poster campaign Monday after the Los Angeles Times reported that there was a link between it and the David Horowitz Freedom Center, which launched the campaign in February.

The posters were condemned by some Jewish student groups, including J Street U and Jewish Voice for Peace; the latter backs the BDS movement.

Adelson, the casino operator and pro-Israel philanthropist, launched the Maccabee Task Force at a summit in Las Vegas in 2015 that brought together other philanthropists each willing to donate $1 million to the project.

— JTA

4.3-magnitude aftershock hits Italian town

A strong aftershock with a preliminary magnitude of 4.3 hits an earthquake-struck area in Italy, causing more damage to buildings in a town nearly destroyed a day earlier.

The aftershock caused one building to partially collapse, sending up plumes of smoke and panic in Amatrice.

Wednesday’s earthquake killed at least 241 people in Amatrice and other towns in central Italy.

— AP

Three troops wounded in ‘PKK attack’ on Turkey opposition chief convoy

Three Turkish troops were wounded when Kurdish militants opened fire on the convoy of Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu but the opposition chief was unharmed, the interior minister says.

Kilicdaroglu’s convoy was driving through the northeastern region of Artvin to an event when it came under attack from gunfire from the woods.

“Terrorists fired on members of the gendarmerie who were protecting the convoy. One was seriously wounded and two were slightly hurt,” Interior Minister Efkan Ala says in televised comments. He says the attack was carried out by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and an operation had been begun against them in the area.

Kilicdaroglu says he was safe and well after the incident. “There is no problem, we are fine, don’t worry,” Kilicdaroglu tells CNN-Turk television by telephone.

The attack came after the botched July 15 coup which has resulted in a greater harmony between opposition and the government, with Kilicdaroglu meeting Erdogan and Yildirim.

— AFP

Gazan tiger arrives in South Africa

A Bengal tiger rescued from what activists have called “the worst zoo in the world” arrives in South Africa for a new home, after living in a small cage in Gaza alongside another tiger’s stuffed corpse.

The nine-year-old male, known as Laziz, arrived by plane. His handlers say he is in good condition and calm after traveling in a wooden crate.

The Four Paws charity launched a rescue effort at the Khan Younis zoo in Gaza when it discovered that the zoo was displaying the taxidermied corpses of animals that had died from stress, disease and starvation. After the zoo asked for help, Four Paws on Wednesday removed 15 animals including five monkeys, a porcupine and an emu. Most were destined for an animal sanctuary in Jordan.

The tiger was being taken to the Lionsrock Big Cat Sanctuary in South Africa. He will roam in a 10,000-square-meter enclosure where he will be able to enjoy swimming and climbing, said Amir Khalil, who led the Gaza mission for Four Paws.

“Laziz is in good condition apart from a scratch on one side of his face, which comes from the crate,” says Marina Strydom, a veterinarian at Lionsrock.

— AP

London, Paris mayors criticize burkini ban

The mayors of London and Paris are criticizing local French bans of body-covering burkini swimsuits, saying women should wear what they want to the beach.

Burkini bans in several French coastal towns this summer have prompted a debate in France and outrage among many people abroad.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan, the city’s first Muslim mayor, said during a visit to Paris on Thursday, “I appreciate that there is a state of emergency in France.” But he added “I don’t think anybody should be telling women what they can or what they can’t wear.”

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo called for an end to burkini “hysteria,” saying authorities should instead focus on improving social cohesion.

Proponents of the bans argue that burkinis represent the servitude of women and violate France’s secular policies.

— AP

Passengers evacuated as train catches fire

Firefighters are battling a blaze on a train that was traveling from the northern city of Haifa to Hadera.

Hundred of passengers were taken off the train after it started omitting copious amounts of smoke from the underside of one of the carriages.

רכבת עלתה באש בין פרדס חנה וחדרה. הנוסעים הורדו. שלושה צוותי כיבוי נמצאים במקום. לא ידוע על נפגעים @LiorKenan pic.twitter.com/lMvMMj56Ca

— חדשות 10 (@news10) August 25, 2016

Israel Railways has announced it has temporarily suspended the service from Haifa to Hadera.

Erekat calls on ICC to prosecute Israel after some Gaza War investigations closed

PLO Secretary General Saeb Erekat is calling on the International Criminal Court in the Hague to prosecute Israel for war crimes after the IDF announced it would close some investigation into the 2014 Gaza War.

“We did not expect anything less than Israel’s justification of war crimes during its last major military attack on Gaza, by clearing itself of all wrongdoing in an investigation conducted by its own colonial regime. This highlights Israel’s attitude toward bombing civilian areas, United Nations buildings (including shelters), hospitals, and other structures protected under the Geneva Conventions. As a result of the 50-day attack, Israel killed 487 children. Yet, Israel has accepted no responsibility for its violent actions against civilians,” Erekat says in a statement.

“To date, we have provided the International Criminal Court with relevant information on Israeli crimes in Gaza. However, after Israel’s official position clearing itself of any responsibility and confirming its commitment to the practice of war crimes, we believe it is time for the court to act. The international community has a responsibility to protect the Palestinian people from the belligerent Israeli military occupation and put an end to Israel’s impunity for all the crimes committed against the land and people of Palestine,” he adds.

The IDF Military Advocate General announced yesterday that it has opened seven criminal investigations into incidents that took place during the fighting but also said that several deadly bombardments in the Strip, including a widely condemned strike near a Rafah school that killed several people, were carried out with proper procedures followed.

Five criminal investigations were closed and another six cases were resolved, without criminal proceedings, the IDF said in a 21-page report released Wednesday.

WhatsApp to share user data with Facebook

Mobile messaging service WhatsApp says it will begin sharing subscriber data with parent Facebook, giving advertisers better access to information on WhatsApp’s one billion-strong user base.

The company said the change will allow Facebook to target advertising at WhatsApp users who are also on the social media platform, and help WhatsApp fight spam on its service.

“By connecting your phone number with Facebook’s systems, Facebook can offer better friend suggestions and show you more relevant ads if you have an account with them,” WhatsApp says in a statement. “For example, you might see an ad from a company you already work with, rather than one from someone you’ve never heard of.”

The decision comes four months after WhatsApp rolled out strong end-to-end encryption as a default feature for all users, saying this made the content of their communications impenetrable to all but those sending or receiving a given message.

“Even as we coordinate more with Facebook in the months ahead, your encrypted messages stay private and no one else can read them. Not WhatsApp, not Facebook, nor anyone else,” the company says, in a possible attempt to quieten criticism of the decision to share information.

— AP

Hamas to leave name off ballots in Palestinian vote

Hamas says it will not submit candidates in its own name for upcoming Palestinian municipal elections, while its rival Fatah registered candidates in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

“Hamas will not participate in the elections under the name of Hamas or with candidates known to be Hamas,” party spokesman Fawzy Barhoum tells AFP.

Instead the movement “will present academic lists, professionals, experts, people recognized for their role in the administration or for international relations.”

The Islamist movement is to decide which candidates to back after the electoral commission announces the full list next month.

Earlier Thursday, Fatah’s Gaza spokesman Fayez Abu Eita told a news conference the party had “submitted lists of candidates for all municipalities in the Gaza Strip to the electoral commission” on the last day of registration.

The elections are due to take place in October.

— AFP

Trump campaign opens 3rd Israeli office

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump opens a campaign office near Tel Aviv, his third in Israel.

The Ramat Gan office is located near the city’s diamond district and will serve central Israel, in the Gush Dan and Sharon regions, Israel National News reports.

It joins offices in Jerusalem and Modiin. A fourth office is scheduled to be opened in the West Bank, according to the report.

“Offices are being opened, but more importantly we are getting dozens of inquiries from Americans and Israelis eager to join in the campaign,” Republicans Overseas Israel said late Wednesday in a post on its Facebook page.

There are believed to be hundreds of thousands of American Israelis who are eligible to vote in the US election, according to Israeli news reports. Many come from Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and California — states with a high number of electoral votes or swing states.

— JTA

Sea turtle saved from plastic bag

A lifeguard, together with a kayaking police officer, rescues a sea turtle that had become tangled in a plastic bag off the coast of Ashdod.

The police officer had been paddling in his kayak in the waters around the coastal city when he spotted the young turtle with a plastic bag wrapped around his right flipper, lifeguard Danny Adler told The Times of Israel.

The officer, who was identified only by his first name Eran, brought the sea turtle ashore, where Adler cut the creature free.

Once loose, the young turtle began flapping its flippers in what this reporter interpreted to be pure, unadulterated joy as he was brought back to the Mediterranean Sea.

— Judah Ari Gross

Trump postpones immigration flip-flop

Donald Trump is promising to unveil his new immigration policy over “the next week or two.”

Trump had originally aimed to give his speech Thursday in Colorado but it was postponed and a makeup date has yet to be announced. Trump, in recent days, has signaled that he is backing away from one of his signature immigration policies, mass deportations of the 11 million immigrants living in the United States illegally.

But Trump, speaking Thursday at a meeting with minority Republicans at Trump Tower, emphasized that he’s still “very strong on illegal immigration.”

“Don’t let the media fool the media,” he said. “(I’m) very strong on illegal immigration, we have to be, we have no choice.”

“We either have our country or we don’t. We either have borders or we don’t,” he said, stressing that he plans to build a stronger border wall with Mexico.

— AP

Rosetta space probe sees bright flares, landslide on comet

The European Space Agency’s Rosetta probe has captured images of a bright burst of light on the comet it is orbiting, apparently caused by a landslide.

The dramatic light flashes were recorded February 19 and accompanied by rising temperatures and sharp increases in dust, gas and plasma released from comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Eberhard Gruen of the Max-Planck-Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, Germany, said Thursday that a landslide on the comet’s surface was most likely responsible.

Rosetta captures comet outburst https://t.co/Ak4wHAHLIX #space #discovery pic.twitter.com/BafNyAFyKB

— Spacer (@spacer_im) August 25, 2016

The flashes would have been generated by light reflecting from dust particles kicked up by the landslide.

The European Space Agency plans to crash-land Rosetta on the comet’s surface Sept. 30, more than two years after it started orbiting the comet.

Data collected by Rosetta and its lander, Philae, have improved scientists’ understanding of comets.

— AP

Police close Beersheba mall over bomb threat

Police are evacuating the central mall in the southern city of Beersheba over a suspicious bag found on the upper floors.

The decision was made after an initial assessment by police sappers who were called to the site by a shopper.

Israeli study finds correlation between moon and jellyfish

Swimmers wanting to avoid being stung by jellyfish may want to watch the sky as much as the sea after Israeli researchers found a link between their arrival and the phase of the moon.

An Israeli study finds that the lunar calendar is a key determinant of when jellyfish arrive on beaches.

In the middle of the lunar months — the days before and during the full moon — jellyfish are far more likely to swarm the beach, potentially stinging humans, according to the research conducted by the Israel Electric Corporation in conjunction with the University of Haifa in northern Israel.

“We were surprised by our findings,” researcher Avi Algazi says. “We knew the moon has a big influence on a lot of things but we didn’t so far have statistical data on the correlation between jellyfish and the moon.”

The jellyfish are a threat to Israel’s power supply as they get sucked into the country’s main power station, which uses sea water for cooling.

The researchers looked at when the power station was most badly affected by the jellyfish and correlated it with the moon and water temperatures. In total, 94 percent of jellyfish swarms arrived after the middle of the year when the seas are warmer and during the second and third weeks of the lunar month.

— AFP

After snub, Israel-linked security firm says thanks but no thanks to UK Labour party

An Israel-linked security firm turns down an offer to provide security to the upcoming UK Labor party conference after it was dropped two months ago for ties to the Jewish State — only asked again because the party could not find a replacement, according to Sky News.

Labour’s dropping of the British-Danish G4S security multinational firm followed a controversial vote last year by members of its National Executive Committee, leaving the party with no fixed arrangements for the September 25 event.

G4S has faced criticism over its involvement in Israeli prisons where Palestinians are held. The Israeli lawmaker Hilik Bar wrote in a letter to a Labour colleague complaining about reports that suggested the Labour boycott was over Israel.

With no security firm to handle the conference, the UK Home Office and police could shut down the event. Three other companies declined the offer of a contract and one withdrew its bid after carrying out a risk assessment, according to the Telegraph report.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who in 2009 called Hezbollah and Hamas his “friends,” has called for sanctions against the Jewish state for what he regarded as its violations of international law. He has since regretted calling the anti-Semitic terrorist groups his friends amid scathing criticism on his conduct by leaders of British Jewry, who have accused him of both encouraging anti-Semitic rhetoric with his policies on Israel and of whitewashing the hate speech problems they said this creates within Labour.

Beersheba bomb threat over

Police say they have finished investigating a suspicious bag found in the central Beersheba mall that spurred a bomb warning.

A sapper robot was sent in to check the bag.

Police did not say if the bag contained a bomb.

UN demands Israel free aid worker accused of helping Hamas

The United Nations has called for the “immediate release” of its staffer arrested by Israel for helping the Hamas terror group including diverting rubble from a UNDP project in the coastal strip to a Hamas operation to build a jetty for its naval force, according to Channel 2 news.

Engineer Waheed Abd Allah Bossh, who has worked for the UN Development Program since 2003, was arrested in July and charged in a civilian court in Israel earlier this month.

The UNDP has said it is “greatly concerned” by the allegations while Hamas, which has run the Gaza Strip since 2007, denied any involvement.

Israel said 38-year-old Bossh, from Jabaliya in northern Gaza, had been recruited by “a senior member of the Hamas terrorist organization to redirect his work for UNDP to serve Hamas’s military interests.”

Rebuffing UN demands, Danny Danon says Israel ‘operates according to the law’

Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon responds to a letter from the UN’s Office of Legal Affairs (OLA) requesting the release of Waheed Abd Allah Bossh, a UNDP worker who was arrested in July for assisting the Hamas terror organization, claiming he should receive diplomatic immunity.

“Israel operates according to the law, and we continue to do so in this case as well,” Danon said in response to the letter. “We do not grant immunity to terrorists trying to harm our citizens.”

The UN is claiming that any employees of the organization should receive the privileges of diplomatic immunity by local authorities and that until Bossh’s release from prison he should be granted visits by the organization.

“The UN and other organizations must implement a comprehensive reform of the humanitarian aid mechanism in Gaza,” Danon added, “Any dollar spent, and any local hire by an international organization, must be monitored ensure they fulfill the purpose of aiding the residents of Gaza and not fund terror activities.”

Kerry outlines new Yemen peace push

US Secretary of State John Kerry announces a fresh international peace initiative for Yemen aimed at forming a unity government to resolve its 17-month-old conflict.

“This war needs to end and it needs to end as quickly as possible,” Kerry said after a meeting in Saudi Arabia with Gulf counterparts, a British minister and the UN peace envoy to Yemen.

He said participants “agreed on a renewed approach to negotiations” between the Saudi-backed government and Iran-supported Shiite rebels, after three months of talks in Kuwait ended earlier in August without headway.

Those talks were suspended when the Shiite Houthi rebels and forces loyal to their ally, former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, appointed a council to govern Yemen.

Kerry outlined a plan which offers the Houthis participation in government in exchange for an end to violence and a surrender of weapons. “This is a proposal that offers the Houthis an opportunity to have confidence in the government structure that will be put in place,” he said.

The Houthis had been demanding a unity government as the first step towards resolving Yemen’s war.