WASHINGTON —
Senior U.S. officials met in Oman last week with representatives of the Houthi rebel movement that has overrun Yemen, the State Department acknowledged on Tuesday.
Assistant Secretary of State Anne Patterson visited Saudi Arabia and Oman in recent days, in a bid to bring the multiple parties involved in Yemen's ongoing political crisis to negotiations.
The meetings are the first publicly recognized talks between U.S. officials and Houthis since the rebels seized the Yemeni capital and ousted President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi earlier this year.
