LONDON/DUBAI (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies are trying to broker a deal to have Yemen’s president step down and hand over power, possibly to an interim council of tribal and political leaders, sources told Reuters yesterday.
Ali Abdullah Saleh’s at times bloody response to protests, inspired by those in Egypt and Tunisia, against his 32-year rule has tried the patience of his US and Saudi backers.
A variety of official sources say they are now ready to push aside a long-time ally against the Yemen-based wing of al Qaeda to avoid a chaotic collapse of the poorest Arab state.
“The proposal is to have a governing council grouping all the various political parties and tribes for a period that would not exceed three months,” one Gulf official told Reuters.
The plan is to be presented to Saleh and his opponents at talks to take place soon in Saudi Arabia. “The council will set the way for elections,” the Gulf official added, echoing other sources in the region and beyond.
“We hope that we will strike a deal,” Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani told reporters on the sidelines of a Business and Investment in Qatar Forum in New York.
“We [Gulf states] have been meeting for the last few days in Riyadh and we’re sending a proposal for him and the opposition and we hope a meeting will be held between his team and the opposition to try to find a way out of this problem,” he said.
Ali Mohsen, the prominent general who turned against Saleh last month, welcomed the proposed Gulf-sponsored transition talks on “the basis of achieving the demands of the peaceful youth revolution,“ a source close to him said yesterday.
But the United Arab Emirates’ foreign minister said a date was yet to be set for the Riyadh talks.
“We are in the process now of talking to all the parties… We have not been in touch with all the parties yet,” Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan told Reuters
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.
This week Washington began to shift its policy of public support for Saleh, who has rallied large numbers of supporters and insists he should stay until elections late this year.
Saleh stepped up rhetoric over the weekend, telling a crowd of supporters he would defend Yemen with “blood and soul”.
Even before the wave of pro-democracy protests against his rule, Saleh was struggling to quell a separatist rebellion in the south and a Shi’ite insurgency in the north.
Frustration with Saleh’s intransigence may push Yemenis, many of them heavily armed and with experience of wars and insurgencies, closer to a violent power struggle that could give al Qaeda’s regional wing more room to operate.
All of these factors spark concern for stability in a country that sits on a shipping lane through which more than three million barrels of oil pass each day.
Tens of thousands protested in the central city of Taiz earlier on Wednesday and security forces fired into the air to try to disperse them. No casualties were reported.
In the latest unrest, police shot and wounded two people during a demonstration against domestic gas shortages in the capital Sanaa late on Wednesday, witnesses said.
Police and armed men in civilian clothes fired on marchers in Taiz and Hudaida in the west on Monday, killing 21 people.
The next day they again fired at crowd of protesters in Taiz, wounding dozens. Protesters responded by hurling rocks. Three people were killed in clashes in the capital Sanaa.
Local analysts say Saleh’s party’s ability to stage big rallies emboldens him, even as hundreds of thousands demand his resignation.
