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US, Saudi pressure may keep Yemen leader abroad

09 August 2011 00:39 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The U.S. and Saudi Arabia pressured Yemen’s president to stay in Saudi Arabia after he was released from a lengthy hospital stay to treat wounds suffered in an assassination attempt, Yemeni officials said Monday, APA reports referring news.yahoo.com webpage.
The officials, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, said the U.S. and Saudi warned Ali Abdullah Saleh that his return to Yemen would likely spark a civil war.
In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said it was up to Saleh to decide whether to stay on in Saudi Arabia or return home and that a transition of power should begin immediately regardless of what Saleh decides to do.
"All we can do is continue to press our belief that this transition needs to happen immediately and cannot wait until a decision is made about his (Saleh’s) future," he said. "So, what we’re working on, through our embassy and our ambassador, is trying to move the process forward now, rather than wait."
The Yemeni officials said that even though Saleh has spent the last two months in a Saudi hospital, he continues to run the country with the help of his family and is in daily contact with tribal chiefs and army commanders.
"The president reluctantly caved in to American and Saudi pressure to stay on in Saudi Arabia," said one official who is close to Saleh. "He will continue to listen to them until he makes a full recovery from his wounds and then decide what to do."
In Washington, a U.S. official cast doubt on the idea of American pressure on Saleh to stay on in Riyadh after his release from the hospital on Sunday.
"It is more likely that any persuasion used successfully with Saleh came from the Saudis," said the official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
Saudi Arabia is among Washington’s staunchest Arab allies and has over the past six decades cooperated with the United States on many aspects of Mideast policy.
Saleh has clung to power in the face of six months of massive street protests across his impoverished nation in the southern corner of the Arabian Peninsula, much like the uprisings sweeping across other parts of the Arab world.