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Yemen’s Saleh urges opposition talks amid new clashes

05 April 2011 20:05 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Embattled Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh urged the opposition to join talks to try to end a weeks-old political crisis and called for an end to violence as fresh clashes broke out, killing at least three people, APA reports quoting news.yahoo.com website .
The Gulf Cooperation Council invited the Yemeni government and opposition representatives to talks in Saudi Arabia, at a date yet to be set, with the United States pressing Saleh to negotiate with his opponents.
Saleh, who ignored a transition-of-power plan offered by the opposition on Saturday, accepted the Arab Gulf states’ invitation and urged to the opposition to follow suit.
"I promise that we will make every effort to return things to normal through talks with rational people from the Joint Meetings Party (Yemen’s main opposition coalition)," he told to supporters in his hometown of Sanhan.
"We repeat our invitation to them to sit at the table of dialogue and we call for a restraint from violence."
The GCC initiative may not satisfy tens of thousands of protesters who have camped out in cities across Yemen for weeks to demand an end to Saleh’s 32-year rule.
The Joint Meetings Party was non-committal in its response.
"We welcome the (GCC) position on respecting the Yemeni people’s choices and we will also welcome any efforts made for the sake of President Saleh’s speedy departure," spokesman Mohammed al-Sabri said. He did not say whether the opposition would attend the proposed talks.
Protesters have grown increasingly frustrated after initial talks stalled and by the escalation of violence at demonstrations. Many expressed skepticism over the GCC talks.
"The initiative came too late, it’s useless. It’s just an attempt to save the regime, which knows very well that it needs to go," said Abdulsitar Mohammed, a youth activist in Sanaa.
Three people died and 15 were wounded in the capital on Tuesday when Saleh supporters clashed with protesters, the defense ministry said. It came a day after security forces and armed men in civilian clothes fired on protesters in Taiz, south of Sanaa, and the Red Sea port of Hudaida, killing 21 people.
On Tuesday, hundreds of security troops and armed men again attacked a crowd of tens of thousands of protesters in Taiz, residents said, and protesters responded by hurling rocks.
Doctors told Reuters around 30 protesters were wounded by gunfire and beatings. Around 300 were wounded in total, they said, most suffering from tear gas inhalation.
"We were walking down the street peacefully but the thugs came after us with bats and knives and guns. They beat us and fired on us," a protester told Reuters by telephone.
TAINTED GENERAL
Aides to General Ali Mohsen, a key military leader who recently threw his weight behind the protesters, said he had also accepted the call for talks in Saudi Arabia.
Some diplomats in Saudi Arabia have suggested Riyadh wants Mohsen to replace Saleh, though the general has said he is not interested in taking power. Civil society opposition groups say Mohsen, 70, an Islamist, is tainted by his kinship and long-time association with the veteran ruler.
A 2005 U.S. diplomatic cable published by Wikileaks said: "Ali Mohsen would likely face domestic as well as international opposition if he sought the presidency... Yemenis generally view him as cynical and self-interested."
OUT WITHIN A WEEK?
The protesters have grown more restless as haggling over talks continues, organizing several attempts to march on presidential or government buildings in several cities.
"I think Saleh will fall within a week," said Yemeni analyst Ali Seif Hassan. "Especially after what happened in Taiz. The people cannot stand it any more. They are not going to wait in their tents after they saw so many of their peers killed."
Frustration with Saleh’s intransigence may push Yemenis, many of them heavily armed and no strangers to wars and insurgencies, closer to a violent power struggle.
One of Washington’s fears has been that Yemen could fragment along tribal and regional lines -- a specter Saleh has raised in speeches -- allowing al Qaeda’s aggressive regional wing based in the impoverished country to stage more attacks abroad.
Tribesmen kidnapped two soldiers in Lowdar, a southern city in the flashpoint Abyan province where militants also operate, a local official said. He said the abduction was a move by tribes to pressure the government to try soldiers who shot dead five youths in Lowdar two weeks ago.
The government said they were al Qaeda operatives but local tribes say the men had no ties to militants. Tribesmen had already kidnapped two other soldiers to pressure the government. Earlier on Tuesday, officials said they found the bodies of two shot soldiers outside Lowdar.
More than 100 people have been killed since anti-government protests began in Yemen, including the March 18 killings of 52 anti-government protesters by rooftop snipers in Sanaa.
That incident, which led Saleh to declare a state of emergency, prompted top Yemeni generals, ambassadors and some tribes to back the protesters in a major blow to the president.
U.S. PRESSURES TRANSFER
On Monday, U.S. officials said Washington was ratcheting up pressure on Saleh to work toward a power transition plan.
"It looks increasingly like he needs to step aside," one U.S. official said, adding the United States was trying to "turn up the heat" on Saleh to come to terms with the opposition.
The United States has long seen Saleh as a pivotal ally in its fight against al Qaeda. He has allowed strikes on suspected camps and has pledged to fight militancy in return for billions of dollars in military aid.
Despite having floated the possibility of stepping down, Saleh appeared increasingly defiant at the weekend, saying that he would defend Yemen with "blood and soul."