DUBAI – The United States has urged Yemen’s president Ali Abdullah Saleh not to return home from Saudi Arabia, where he has been recovering from injuries from an assassination attempt during a popular uprising, diplomatic sources have said.
They said that message was conveyed directly to Mr Saleh, who emerged on Sunday from the Riyadh hospital where he had been receiving treatment since a bomb attack in his palace on June 3rd left him with severe burns and other wounds. The sources did not indicate whether Mr Saleh accepted that request.
The latest development in the wrangle over Mr Saleh’s fate came as he renewed a vow to return as soon as his health permitted to Yemen, where six months of protests demanding his removal have seen the impoverished state slide towards the brink of civil war.
The US and Saudi Arabia, both targets of foiled attacks from al- Qaeda’s Yemen-based branch and wary of chaos that could embolden the group, have tried to ease Mr Saleh from office with a plan brokered by Yemen’s richer Gulf neighbours.
Mr Saleh agreed to the deal but backed out of signing three times. Last time it kindled weeks of fighting between his forces and fighters from the al-Hashed tribal grouping, which supports calls for an end to his 33 years of autocratic rule.
US ambassador to Yemen Gerald Feierstein yesterday urged him to allow the power transfer which that deal envisioned. “We believe . . . dealing with the political, economic and security problems in Yemen cannot happen without a transfer of power in the country and the arrival of new leadership in the country,” he told the US Arabic-language broadcaster Radio Sawa.
His remarks echoed those of US state department spokesman Mark Toner on Monday. When asked about reports that Washington had called on Mr Saleh not to return, Mr Toner urged an immediate transfer of power to his deputy, the acting head of state.
The transition plan, brokered by the six-nation Gulf Co-operation Council, has been moribund since Mr Saleh last avoided signing it in May, triggering fighting between his forces and those of the al-Ahmar family, a leading part of the Hashed group.
A further centre of power is represented by Gen Ali Mohsen, a top general who turned on Mr Saleh and sided with the protesters, against whom forces loyal to Mr Saleh turned their weapons as calls for his removal intensified.
Relative calm has held in the capital since Mr Saleh’s departure, even as longstanding conflicts in the south have reignited. These include a fight with Islamists that has led to a mass exodus from one province.
The collection of leftist, Islamist, socialist and other political parties, which signed the deal Mr Saleh rejected, has been shunned by protesters. The contest, said analyst Ali Seif Hassan, was deadlocked between forces commanded by Mr Saleh’s son and nephews, those of tribal chief Sadeq al-Ahmar and Gen Mohsen.
It may only be resolved by a far more complicated bargain.
“The only way he will agree not to return is if Ali Mohsen also consents to leave,” Mr Hassan added. “They were in power together, committed crimes together and his [Saleh’s] group will not consent to Mohsen remaining while the president accepts being gone.” – (Reuters)