The Yemeni government said Sunday it has accepted a UN-proposed peace agreement to end more than a year of armed conflict, but there has been no word from the rebels.

The announcement by the Saudi-backed government came after a high-level meeting in Riyadh chaired by Yemen's President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.

"The meeting approved the draft agreement presented by the United Nations calling for an end to the armed conflict and the withdrawal (of rebels) from Sanaa... and the cities of Taez and Al-Hudaydah," said a statement, cited by the Saba news agency.

Yemen's Foreign Minister Abdulmalek al-Mikhlafi, who is leading negotiating team in Kuwait City, said he has sent a letter to the UN special envoy informing him the government backed the "Kuwait Agreement".

One pre-condition, however, is that the Iran-backed Huthis and forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh sign the deal by August 7, Mikhlafi wrote on Twitter.

He said the Yemeni leadership has authorised the delegation to sign the deal, which has received strong international and regional backing.

There has been no official reaction from the rebels.

Huthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam, however, said on Twitter before the government announcement that the rebels insist on a comprehensive and complete solution, and rejected what he called "half solutions".

Under the agreement, all decisions made by the rebels since they occupied the capital in September 2014 will be scrapped, Mikhlafi said.

The deal also abolishes the controversial supreme political council set up jointly by the Huthis and the General People's Congress of former president Saleh on Thursday to run the country, he said.

A political dialogue between various Yemeni factions will start 45 days after the rebels withdraw and hand over heavy weapons to a military committee to be formed by President Hadi.

Prisoners of war will also be freed, as specified by the UN Security Council resolution 2216, the agreement said.

The talks in Kuwait, which began on April 21, have so far made no major breakthrough.

UN special envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed on Saturday managed to extend discussions for a week after the government delegation said it was leaving, and submitted the peace deal draft to both sides.

The government approval also came hours after seven Saudi troops were killed in border clashes with Yemeni rebels.

More than 6,400 people have been killed in the Arabian Peninsula state since the Saudi-led coalition intervened in March last year in support of Hadi's government.

Another 2.8 million people have been displaced and more than 80 percent of the population urgently needs humanitarian aid, according to UN figures.

Yemen peace talks extended for a week: Kuwait
Kuwait City (AFP) July 31, 2016 - UN-brokered Yemen peace talks have been extended for one week, host Kuwait said on Saturday, after seven Saudi troops were killed in border clashes with Iran-backed Yemeni rebels.

The Saudis died after Shiite Huthi rebels backed by soldiers loyal to the former president tried to infiltrate the southern Najran area of the kingdom, said the Riyadh-led coalition fighting in Yemen.

"An officer and six soldiers of the Saudi armed forces fell martyrs," it said in a statement carried by state media, claiming dozens of rebels were killed.

Southern Saudi Arabia has come under sporadic attack since March 2015, when Riyadh took the lead in an Arab military coalition battling Shiite Huthi rebels who control northern Yemen.

Hours after the clashes, Kuwait's foreign ministry announced peace talks would be extended until August 7 in a statement cited by the official KUNA news agency.

Otherwise, they would have ended without result on Saturday after Yemen's government pulled out over an attempted coup by rebel forces.

United Nations envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed held talks with both delegations on Saturday and proposed a framework for a comprehensive settlement.

"I met today with both delegations (and) suggested a one-week extension to the talks," Ould Cheikh Ahmed wrote on Twitter.

He said he also proposed a "framework for a solution to the crisis in Yemen", without elaborating.

Sources from the two delegations told AFP the proposed settlement is based on the withdrawal of rebels from territory they occupied in 2014, the handover of weapons and a return of state institutions.

- 'New coup' -

Yemen's government delegation had said it was planning on leaving Kuwait later Saturday after the rebels and their allies announced the creation of a council to run the country.

"There can be no more talks after the new coup," delegation spokesman Mohammad al-Emrani told AFP.

The Huthi rebels and the General People's Congress of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh on Thursday jointly announced setting up a 10-member "supreme political council".

Its job will be to "manage state affairs politically, militarily, economically, administratively, socially and in security", a statement said.

The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council and the ambassadors of 18 other nations backing peace in Yemen condemned the council, and called for a resumption of peace talks.

Indirect negotiations in Kuwait have failed to make headway since April. Most of the discussions have focused on the type of transition government to run Yemen.

More than 6,400 people have been killed in the Arabian Peninsula state since the Saudi-led coalition intervened last year in support of the government of Yemen President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.

Another 2.8 million people have been displaced and more than 80 percent of the population urgently needs humanitarian aid, according to UN figures.

A police officer was killed on Saturday when a bomb blew up his car in Yemen's second city Aden, a security official said.

Further east, gunmen on a motorbike shot dead an officer in the town of Shibam in Hadramawt province, a military official said.