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Saudi Arabia and the Houthi militia have voiced support for the United States' calls for a ceasefire in Yemen, as fighting continues on the ground.
Arab media reported Monday disputed fighting between the Saudi-led coalition and the Houthis around the key town of Hodeida, Red Sea port.
The coalition is waging a war against the Houthi rebels to reinstate the internationally recognized Yemeni government.
Saudi King Salman, at the annual opening session of the Saudi Al Choura Advisory Council, told delegates that he was determined to abide by international efforts to forge a ceasefire in Yemen .
He added that the kingdom had a duty to support the Yemeni people in their resistance to "aggression" of Houthis backed by Iran. But he added that the Saudis would support a political solution based on UN Security Council Resolution 2216 and the Yemen Gulf Dialogue initiative.
The resolution calls for an end to violence in Yemen.
The king also called on Iran to "stop interfering in the internal affairs of other countries or to support terrorism or chaos".
The conflict is considered an indirect war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The subject of Yemen was also discussed when Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif welcomed his British counterpart, Jeremy Hunt, to Tehran on Monday.
Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, who heads the Supreme Council of the Houthi Revolution, said Sunday that he was ready to end military operations on all fronts to achieve a just and honorable peace for the Yemeni people.
He added that his group would also put an end to missile and drone attacks against countries belonging to the Saudi coalition (including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan).
Houthi spokesman Mohammed Al Bakhiti told the Arab media on Monday that his group would respect a ceasefire if his opponents respected him as well.
He said his group was willing to wait to probe the determination of the international community to end what he called the aggression against Yemen. But he added that the Houthis would resume their defense if these efforts did not produce anything.
Spokesman for the Saudi coalition, Colonel Turki al-Maliki, told reporters in Riyadh on Monday that the coalition "supports all efforts by US envoy Martin Griffiths to restore peace in Yemen, but that fighting continued in Hodeida.
He accused the Houthis of trying to launch a missile into Saudi territory during the nightfall in Yemen.
He added that the coalition had virtually encircled the city and was three kilometers from its center. He said the Houthis were desperate and fleeing.
He said the fighting in Hodeida was continuing for humanitarian reasons. He accused the militia of having violated international humanitarian law by blowing up grain depots used in Hodeida for humanitarian aid and by putting mines in stacks of wheat and TNT in sugar bags. . He said the Houthis had blown up a school and used mosques to stockpile antipersonnel mines.
Hilal Khashan, who teaches political science at the American University of Beirut, said a ceasefire would eventually be concluded in Yemen, but that both parties wanted to take the last shot before entering in force.
"Usually," he said, "before the entry into force of a ceasefire, we are normally witnessing an escalation of hostilities and it seems to me that since the fighting continues in Hodeida and the claim that they fired a rocket or missile into Saudi Arabia that did not reach its target tells us that the Houthis are keen to tell everyone that the last blow was theirs before the ceasefire. "
Khashan said that shooting the last shot in a conflict was "of significant symbolic significance". He stressed that Iraq "insisted on firing the last missile from the Iran-Iraq war before the last cease-fire of 1988".
Hezbollah, he added, also continued firing rockets at Israel until the last minute of the 2006 conflict in southern Lebanon.
