RIYADH/SANAA/DUBAI: Houthi rebels and their allies in Yemen are the only ones who can bring an end to the 7-month-old war there, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister said Tuesday.

“I believe that the matter of the end of hostilities lies entirely with the Houthis and with Saleh,” Adel al-Jubeir said, referring to former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. “They are the ones who started this, and they are the ones who continue this,” he said in a news conference.

Saleh’s party last week said it had accepted a United Nations plan to end the fighting.

According to the plan, Saleh’s General People’s Congress party would accept U.N. Security Council Resolution 2216 under an “implementation mechanism that would be agreed on by all parties” in Yemen, the party said.

Resolution 2216 calls for the withdrawal of rebel forces from territories they have captured and for them to lay down their arms.

U.N. envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed has been holding secret talks with Saleh’s GPC and Houthi representatives in neutral Yemen.

In September, coalition-supported forces began a major offensive east of Sanaa as the internationally backed government of President Abed Rabbou Mansour Hadi pulled out of U.N.-brokered peace talks.

The government said it would not attend the talks unless the rebels first accepted Resolution 2216.

“The coalition has achieved success in reversing the gains by Houthi-Saleh forces in Yemen,” and now is the time for a political process to begin based on Resolution 2216, Jubeir said.

Officials at Yemen’s Red Sea port of Hudaida said the first ship to dock there in three weeks arrived Tuesday, carrying desperately needed fuel, as Saudi Arabia denied it was obstructing aid supplies heading for Yemen by sea.

Yemen is suffering what the U.N. has designated as one of its highest-level humanitarian crises but aid efforts have been severely hampered by ongoing fighting and air and sea ports being blocked for long periods.

Hudaida port officials said that two cargo ships, one carrying wheat and the other timber, were the last vessels to enter the facility about three weeks ago.

The tanker that arrived Tuesday had been waiting in international waters for two months, they said, adding that nine other vessels were anchored about 60 miles away from the port awaiting permission to enter.

International aid officials say imports to Yemen have slowed to a trickle because of inspections of vessels by the Saudi-led coalition looking for smuggled weapons.

However, coalition spokesman Brig. Gen. Ahmed Asiri said there had been no attempts to prevent ships from reaching Hudaida, adding that six ships had arrived at Hudaida two days ago and 12 more to the southern port city of Aden, which is controlled by Hadi’s government.

“The ships are still operating,” Asiri told Reuters.

“We told the crude oil to go to Aden, to the refinery there. But for the rest, the refined fuel, plus the food and humanitarian aid, they can go to Hudaida. We want this to go to the population. That is where our concern is.”

Asiri said ships sent by humanitarian bodies such as the Red Crescent and the U.N. are not searched, nor are ships from member countries of the coalition. Only those ships coming from third countries are searched, he added.

He appeared to be referring to a new inspection regime backed by U.N. and announced in September to increase the flow of commercial goods into Yemen.

Shipping sources said that the fuel tanker’s cargo of diesel was destined for a flour mill that was forced to close early October due to lack of fuel.

Meanwhile, security officials say airstrikes from the coalition have killed eight Houthi fighters in a renewed attempt to cut their supply lines to Hudaida.

The officials, who remain neutral in the conflict that has splintered Yemen’s armed forces, said Tuesday’s strikes hit Hudaida, which lies on a major rebel supply line to the heavily contested city of Taiz.

Taiz is in government hands, but is besieged by the rebels.

Securing Taiz would allow the pro-government forces to push north toward the rebel-held capital, Sanaa.

All officials requested anonymity because they are not authorized to brief reporters.

Yemen’s Al-Qaeda affiliate detained three journalists and a non-governmental worker who took part in a rare demonstration against the militants’ rule over the eastern city of Mukalla, security officials said Tuesday.

The four were among more than 500 protesters who took to the streets of the coastal city, which was seized by Al-Qaeda earlier this year, the officials said.