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Yemenis call for interim council

08 June 2011 03:21 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Yemeni protesters have converged on the capital Sana’a to call for the establishment of an interim council to block President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s return to the country, APA reports quoting Press TV.
In an attempt to fill the power vacuum in Yemen, hundreds of protesters, rejuvenated by Saleh’s departure, demanded the creation of an interim council, Reuters reported on Tuesday. The Yemeni leader is currently receiving medical treatment in Saudi Arabia. The Yemeni president was injured in an attack on the presidential palace on Friday, June 3. On Tuesday, a Yemeni official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Saleh has burns covering about 40 percent of his body, Reuters reported. His vice president said on Monday that Saleh would return to Yemen in a matter of days. However, earlier reports suggested that Saleh is unlikely to return to Yemen anytime soon due to the severity of his injuries. The protesters gathered outside Vice President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s residence and called for a swift transition of power. "We are demanding an interim council as a second goal of the revolution. Now the president of the republic has departed and hopefully he won’t return. The second goal is for all the political parties to form an interim council, headed by the vice (president) and that is why we came out, to demand the formation of an interim council and the formation of a government to run the country," protester Abdullah al-Shrif said. Anti-government protesters have turned out for rallies in the major cities of Yemen since late January, demanding that Saleh to step down after over three decades in power.