Yemen peace talks have ended on Friday with no deal or truce, with the head of the government-in-exile saying they will return to Saudi Arabia on Saturday.

The US State Department remained hopeful however, saying that the talks were a useful start to what is likely to be a long process.

“We are optimistic that we will go into a peaceful solution for Yemen under the umbrella of (the) United Nations. But, unfortunately, the Houthis delegation did not allow us really to reach to a real progress as we expected,” remarked Yemen’s Foreign Minister Riad Yassin.

The government in exile are calling for the Houthis to pull out of cities captured since September as a condition for a truce.:

“There is no agreement, let’s be clear about that,” explained UN Special Envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed. “There was no kind of agreement reached because the parties had divergent views with regard to reaching the original agreement, with regard to reaching an agreement in itself.”

Yemen has seen months of conflict after Houthi rebels stormed the capital Sana’a last year and forced President Hadi to flee. The UN estimates that 80 percent of the population are now in need of humanitarian protection.