Opposition, vice president strike cooling-off deal

The vice president and parliamentary opposition members struck a deal yesterday to try to ease Yemen’s political crisis, as young protesters pushed for a transitional ruling council within 24 hours.

With security deteriorating in the south of the country, meanwhile, the army kept up its battle against Al-Qaeda suspects in the city of Zinjibar where more than 100 combatants have reportedly been killed in the past two weeks.

Vice President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi and the parliamentary opposition, at a meeting in Sanaa, reached a reconciliation agree-ment, opposition spokesman Mohammed Qahtan said.

“We agreed to calm the situation in terms of security and media campaigns, in a first step towards reviving the political process and meeting the aspirations of all Yemenis,” said Mr Qahtan, adding the two sides would meet again.

Political sources in Sanaa said the dialogue could aim to revive a Gulf-brokered power transfer plan, which President Ali Abdullah Saleh who is hospitalised in Saudi Arabia has refused to sign.

They said Mr Hadi was under pressure from the US, Europe and Gulf states to move toward a transition deal as uncertainty persists over the health of the president.

Yemeni authorities have said that Mr Saleh, wounded in a June 3 bomb blast in the mosque of his presidential compound, would address the nation “very soon,” although an informed Yemeni source in Riyadh said he was in poor health.

Gulf Arab foreign ministers, who suspended their mediation efforts on Yemen on May 23, are set to meet today.

Mr Saleh has steadfastly refused to sign the initiative that would see him transfer power to his deputy, Mr Hadi, within 30 days in return for immunity from prosecution.

Activists of the “Youth Revolution” movement, in a statement, yesterday urged Mr Hadi to “clarify his position in the coming 24 hours and (state) whether or not he will take part in the transitional council.”

“We will work with all forces to form the council in the hours that follow the ultimatum given to Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi,” they said, adding the council would lead Yemen for a maximum nine months of transitional rule.

The activists, who have been protesting on the streets against Mr Saleh’s 33-year-long autocratic rule since January, said the council would “appoint a nationalist and compatible figure to form a government of technocrats.”

They also called for the dissolution of parliament and Yemen’s consultative council, for the formation of a committee to draw up a new constitution, and for dates to hold a referendum on the constitution and for elections.

The protest movement said it held Mr Hadi responsible for the violence sweeping Yemen at a time of political turmoil.

A military official said yesterday that at least 80 members of the security forces have been killed in clashes with suspected Al-Qaeda gunmen in Zinjibar over the past two weeks.

Sixty Al-Qaeda militants, among them local leaders, have also died, he said, since gunmen seized control of much of Zinjibar in late May.

Security officials say the militants are Al-Qaeda fighters but the political opposition accuses the government of embattled Saleh of inventing a jihadist threat to head off Western pressure on his three-decade rule.