A Qatari committee returned to Sa'ada, north of Yemen, to resume talks with the rebels, official sources said yesterday.

Talks between the Yemeni government and Al Houthi followers to end a four-year long armed rebellion according to a Qatari-brokered deal had reached a deadlock last week.

The Qatari deputy foreign minister Saif Abu Al Ainain will chair the Qatari committee that will resume talks with Al Houthi, the official source said in remarks published yesterday. The Qatari and Yemeni presidential committee, which includes five representatives for Al Houthi, in charge of supervising the implementation of the Qatari-brokered deal, had come back to Sana'a earlier in the week without achieving any concrete results.

The reporter of the Yemeni committee, Abdul Janadi said they had come back to Sana'a only for "consultations because Al Houthi refused to come down from the mountains."

The rebels' leader Abdul Malek Al Houthi, said however, the Qataris had left Sa'ada after reaching a deadlock because "the government refused to pull out the troops from villages, schools and mosques."

The Yemeni government seems to be insisting on reaching a solution for such an armed rebellion especially in the framework of the Qatari initiative.

New steps will be taken over the coming days to end the rebellion, saving blood, and bringing peace, the official source said commenting on the return of the Qatari committee to Sa'ada yesterday.

Earlier, Abdul Kareem Al Iryani, the political advisor of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, showed confidence in Qatari mediation efforts to end the armed rebellion and bring peace to Sa'ada.

"Those who are in doubt about the mediation do not know what's happening on the ground. The problem has historic, political, and sectarian roots. It cannot be solved merely by signing the Doha deal," said Al Iryani who was among those who signed the deal for the Yemeni government in Doha last year.