Yemen Govt Slams UN Envoy for 'Appeasing' Rebels.

Yemen's foreign minister slammed a UN envoy Saturday for "appeasing" Huthi rebels by not squarely blaming them for the failure of peace talks in Geneva. "I believe that the words of the Special Envoy... were, unfortunately, appeasing the coup plotters and giving them an excuse," Khaled Yamani told reporters.

His comments came shortly after UN envoy Martin Griffiths announced that talks scheduled this week had ended after the rebels failed to show up. "We didn't manage to get... the delegation from Sanaa to come here... We just didn't make it," he told reporters, insisting however that the Huthi delegation had wanted to come and were "disappointed not to be here."

Asked who was to blame for the stillborn negotiations, he insisted: "It's not my job to find fault. It's my job to find agreement." "I'm not in the business of finding fault with one side so that the other side allegedly can be happier." His comments certainly did not please Yamani, who has been heading the Yemen government delegation that arrived in Geneva on Wednesday for the talks.