Saleh to look at restarting Yemeni peace plan

RIYADH: Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has agreed to look at restarting a Gulf Arab initiative aimed at ending the country's violent political standoff with a peaceful transfer of power, a Yemeni government official said on Wednesday.

Saleh has already agreed to the plan brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) three times, only to back out of it at the last minute. His latest gesture followed prodding to hand over power by the United States, which fears that Yemen's political vacuum could strengthen the local wing of al Qaeda.

The official said Saleh had met members of Yemen's ruling party in Riyadh, where he has been receiving medical treatment since being badly injured in an assassination attempt in June.

"He agreed with them to explore ways of restarting the GCC initiative and of creating a mechanism that will ensure a peaceful transfer of power," the official told Reuters.

Saleh had agreed to work with the main opposition parties, other Yemeni groups, international bodies and concerned countries to finds ways to end the crisis, the official said.

Yemen has been sliding towards civil war during protests demanding Saleh's overthrow since January. The transition plan brokered by the six-nation GCC has been moribund since he last avoided signing it in May.

The Riyadh meeting was attended by Yemen's prime minister -- who was also wounded in the bomb attack that forced Saleh to seek treatment in the Saudi capital -- the head of a security agency and other senior loyalists, the official said.

Saleh emerged on Sunday from the Riyadh hospital where he had been receiving treatment for severe burns and other injuries. He renewed a promise to return home even though the United States, which had long made Saleh a cornerstone of its counterterrorism policy, urged him not to.

US diplomats relayed that message to Saleh in Riyadh, diplomatic sources said on Tuesday.

Soon after, the United Nations Security Council called for "an inclusive, orderly and Yemeni-led process of political transition that meets the needs and aspirations of the Yemeni people for change".

Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2011

Copyright Reuters, 2011