SANAA - Yemen's vice president said late Saturday the government and the
opposition were close to finalising a deal aimed at easing President Ali
Abdullah Saleh out of power, one day after 17 people died in violence in the
city of Taiz.
An opposition leader dismissed the remarks and said the only way to end
Yemen's crisis was for Saleh to sign the deal or empower his deputy to do
so. The state's Saba news agency said Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi made his
remarks during a meeting with visiting UN envoy Jamal Benomar and
ambassadors of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council in the
capital Sanaa. "We all have a task represented in translating UN Security
Council resolution 2014 into action on the ground, and this is a task the
ruling party and the opposition must shoulder together," Saba quoted Hadi as
saying. Hadi told the diplomats that discussions with the opposition have
covered nearly 85 percent of the Gulf deal, without going into further
detail, Saba reported. Saleh has repeatedly backed down on signing the
accord, first proposed in April to end months of protests against his rule
that have destabilised Yemen and rattled Saudi Arabia, the world's largest
oil exporter which shares a long and porous border with Yemen.
Yasin Numan, a leader of an opposition alliance leading anti-Saleh protests,
said Benomar's mission was to discuss signing the accord, and called for
more pressure on Saleh to sign the Gulf initiative. "What does it mean to
talk about a mechanism when the other side has not signed the initiative
yet? They must sign it first and then we can talk about its implementat
Meanwhile, eight militants linked to Al-Qaeda were killed in Yemen's restive
southern Abyan province in overnight clashes with government troops and
armed tribesmen, a local government official said on Sunday.
At least two of the dead militants were of "African" origin.Government
troops, backed by US drones, are at war with the Partisans of Sharia
(Islamic law) in Abyan and Yemen's eastern Marib province.The group is
believed to be an affiliate of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP,
which is widely considered the global terror network's most active and
deadly branch.
------------[ Sent via the dehai-wn mailing list by dehai.org]--------------
Received on Sun Nov 13 2011 - 13:23:26 EST