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Yemeni opposition stipulates Saleh to sign GCC deal before dialogue resumes

18 November 2011 19:42 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Yemeni opposition leaders on Friday reiterated their stance that President Ali Abdullah Saleh should firstly sign a UN-backed Gulf initiative for power transfer before resuming any dialogue, during a meeting with visiting UN envoy Jamal bin Omar, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

The meeting, which was attended by Chinese, Russian, U.S., European Union ambassadors to Yemen, came a day after the opposition leaders headed by Mohamed Salim Basindwa, chairman of the opposition National Council, returned to Sanaa following weeks- long tour in Gulf countries to seek support for ousting Saleh.

"We will neither resume dialogue nor sign the proposed mechanism, which Saleh has asked for, until he signs the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) initiative first," the opposition website quoted Basindwa as saying.

Saleh on Tuesday told bin Omar that he would not sign the initiative unless an execution mechanism for implementing the deal is agreed upon by his ruling party and the opposition leaders.

"We call for the international community to determine who is hindering the process of the deal and to adopt a package of sanctions against him and his party," Basindwa added.

Bin Omar was expected to leave Yemen late on Friday to present his report on the progress of implementing the UN Resolution 2014 to the Security Council.

The UN resolution was issued on Oct. 21 and called on Saleh to sign the GCC initiative and end violence.

The GCC initiative stipulates Saleh to hand over power to his deputy Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and quit in 30 days in return for immunity from prosecution. Hadi would then form an opposition-led national government and arrange presidential elections in 60 days.

Saleh has backed out of signing the initiative for three times in the last minutes, confronting the 10-month-old protests.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of protesters held rallies across the country on Friday to call for ousting and prosecuting Saleh for "the violence that killed thousands of people since the protest movement began in late January."

The protesters urged the UN Security Council to take an effective action against Saleh and his regime’s violence, according to the protest organizers.

At least 94 people were killed and hundreds of others injured during clashes with Saleh’s forces in Sanaa and southern province of Taiz since the issuance of the UN resolution, according to recent statistics by the opposition coalition Joint Meeting Parties.