Yemeni parliament rejects president Hadi's resignation

Xinhua

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The Yemeni parliament on Thursday night rejected President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi's resignation and called for holding an emergency session on Friday to resolve the crisis, the parliament said in a statement obtained by Xinhua.

"The resignation of President Hadi is rejected and we call for holding an emergency session tomorrow," it said in a brief statement.

Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi on Thursday night submitted his resignation to the parliament amid standoff with the Shiite Houthi group who control the capital.

"I have bear the responsibility of the presidency since Feb. 25, 2012, but since the events of Sep. 21, 2014 that effect the political transitional process, I'm no longer able to achieve the goal which I was elected for because of the abandonment of other parties which refused to bear responsibility with us to get Yemen into safety out of the political crisis," Hadi said in his resignation letter, a copy of which is obtained by Xinhua.

"I offer my apology to the parliament and to our people after we have reached a dead-end," Hadi added.

The government signed on Wednesday a peace deal with the Houthi group which seized the presidential palace during clashes with presidential guards since Monday.

According to the deal, the Houthi group would withdraw its fighters from around Hadi's house, pull out its fighters from the presidential palace and the nearby military base, and remove all new checkpoints set up.

However, government officials said Thursday that Houthi fighters still seized the presidential palace.

Meanwhile, Yemeni Prime Minister Khaled Bahah presented resignation to Hadi, minutes before Hadi submitted his resignation to the parliament.

"Despite the short duration we worked in, the matters in Yemen seems to move in a different direction, therefore we choose to distance ourselves from such destructive political chaos which is not based on either law or logical systems," Khaled Bahah said in his resignation letter.

Khaled Bahah, born in 1965 in Yemen's southeastern province of Hadramout, was named as premier on Oct. 13, 2014.

The Houthi group on Thursday night released a statement on its website to welcome the resignations of Hadi and Bahah. Enditem