By Ahmed el-Masri

DOHA, Qatar

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said on Friday that the Houthis are Saudi Arabia’s neighbors.

His comments on Twitter came just hours after positive developments at the UN-brokered peace conference in Kuwait.

UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed had said this week that the Yemeni government and the Houthis were discussing proposals to exchange prisoners before the month of Ramadan in June.

“Whether we disagree or agree with the Houthis, they remain a part of Yemen’s society,” Al-Jubeir tweeted. “Daesh and al-Qaeda, however, are terrorist organizations that should not be allowed to remain either in Yemen or in any other place in the world.”

Yemen has remained racked by chaos since 2014, when the Houthis and their allies overran capital Sanaa and other parts of the country, forcing President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi and his Saudi-backed government to temporarily flee to Riyadh.

According to UN figures, the ongoing conflict has led to the death of more than 6,400 Yemenis to date and forced some 2.5 million to flee their homes.