SANAA: Ousted Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s party and Shiite Houthi rebels have accepted a peace plan brokered by the United Nations in talks in Oman, paving the way for resuming negotiations to end months of conflict in the country.

Both groups said Wednesday that they had officially notified U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon that they were ready to join talks on a settlement based on a seven-point peace plan proposed by the U.N. in talks in Oman last month.

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

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

This must take place under U.N. supervision to prepare for a relaunch of the political process.

A first attempt to hold peace talks in Geneva in June between the pro-government forces and Houthi rebels collapsed without the warring parties even sitting down in the same room.

Last month, President Abed Rabbou Mansour Hadi’s government backed away from U.N.-sponsored talks that were to be held in Oman, insisting the rebels first publicly accept the unconditional implementation of the U.N. resolution and withdraw from seized territory.

Oman is the only member of the Gulf Cooperation Council, led by Riyadh, not taking part in the Saudi-led coalition’s air war launched in March against the rebels, and Muscat also has good ties with Tehran.

The Gulf Cooperation Council said the resolution’s implementation must be accompanied by a halt to military operations and lifting of the blockade imposed by the coalition on Yemen.

In his letter dated Oct. 3, Houthi spokesman Mohammad Abdul-Salam confirmed that his group and others allied to it backed the seven-point plan.

“The Security Council supports a political settlement for the Yemen crisis and the return to the talks with no preconditions, and so do we,” the letter added.

Saleh’s GPC party also accepted the plan. “An official source at the General People’s Congress reiterated the party’s fast position on ending hostilities and raising the blockade and on a peaceful solution to Yemen’s crisis,” it said in a statement.

The Saudi-led coalition and Hadi view the Houthis as proxies for Iran and regard Saleh as a spoiler trying to undermine a political accord that allowed him to step down following months of protests in 2011.

Aid agencies and the U.N. have raised alarm over the human cost of the war, both from fighting that has claimed over 5,000 lives and from a blockade by the Saudi-led coalition supporting Hadi that they say has brought Yemen close to famine.

Citing allegations of war crimes, the rights group Amnesty International Wednesday called for countries including the U.S and the United Kingdom to stop arming the Saudi-led coalition, which has been bombing Yemen for over six months.

The London-based watchdog’s latest report “demonstrates in harrowing detail how crucial it is to stop arms being used to commit serious violations of this kind,” said Donatella Rovera, who headed the group’s fact-finding mission to Yemen.

The report, titled “‘Bombs fall from the sky day and night’: Civilians under fire in northern Yemen” focuses on the plight of civilians in the Houthi strongholds.

In it, Amnesty said: “Damning evidence of war crimes by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition ... highlights the urgent need for independent, effective investigation of violations and for the suspension of transfers of certain arms.

“The USA and other states exporting weapons to any of the parties to the Yemen conflict have a responsibility to ensure that the arms transfers they authorize are not facilitating serious violations of international humanitarian law,” Amnesty said.

It urged an end to the sale of warplanes, helicopters and bombs, particularly pointing to internationally banned cluster bombs. A spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Gulf-backed forces have in recent weeks pushed the Houthis and Saleh’s forces out of Yemen’s second city Aden and retaken swaths of the south.