UN Secretary-General Special Envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed open with delegations from Sanaa the Yemen peace talks in Switzerland.

The next round of peace talks between Yemen’s government and Iran-backed Houthi militia scheduled for next week have been postponed, Foreign Minister Abdel Malak al-Mekhlafi said Saturday.

“The negotiations will not take place on the announced date of Jan. 14,” Mekhlafi said on the phone from Cairo.

“They will be postponed until Jan. 20 or 23 because the Houthis rejected the date of Jan. 14.”

He said U.N. envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed would travel to the capital Sanaa on Sunday to “convince the Houthis to participate in the negotiations on the new dates.”

The envoy would also seek “confidence-building measures” from the Houthis, including the lifting of their siege of Taez and allowing aid into the southwestern city, he added.

The next round of peace talks would be held in Geneva, said the Yemeni minister.

Yemen’s government sat down with the rebels and their allies in Switzerland last month for six days of talks that ended with no major breakthrough.

A halt to the violence is sorely needed in the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest nation, where the U.N. says fighting since March has killed thousands of people and left about 80 percent of the population needing humanitarian aid.

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