Rival protests have been staged in the Yemeni capital Sana’a after a government negotiating team abandoned talks with Shia Houthis.
Reports said on Sunday that rival leaders encouraged their followers to participate in the rallies in different parts of Sana’a.
The anti-government protesters, who support the Houthis, mainly gathered in the north of the capital.
The pro-government demonstrations were mainly organized in the central part of the capital.
There have been no reports of clashes between the two groups.
Earlier in the day, Abdulmalek al-Mikhlafi, the spokesman for the government’s negotiating team, said that Houthi fighters “rejected all the proposals presented to them,” and that the “negotiations in Sa’ada have failed.”
Sources say the proposals suggested forming a technocrat government. They also include an offer to set up an economic committee to review a bone of contention over the fuel subsidies in the country.
The delegation representing President Abd Rabuh Mansur Hadi had been holding negotiations with Houthi leader Abdulmalik al-Huthi in Sa’ada since Thursday in an effort to persuade him to end the demonstrations.
The Houthi movement played a key role in the popular revolution that forced former dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down.
Saleh, who ruled Yemen for 33 years, stepped down in February 2012 under a US-backed power transfer deal in return for immunity after a year of mass street demonstrations demanding his ouster.
