A Gulf-brokered deal to ease Yemeni
President Ali Abdullah Saleh out of power neared collapse on
Sunday after he refused to sign, raising the threat of increased
instability in the Arabian Peninsula state.
The pact would have made Saleh, a shrewd political survivor
who has been in power for 33 years, the third ruler ousted by a
wave of popular pro-democracy uprisings sweeping the Arab world.
He had been due to sign the deal on Saturday.
Yemen’s opposition, furious over the last-minute change of
heart that it described as political manoeuvring, said it was
considering escalating pressure on the president to step aside
after three months of street protests demanding his ouster.
“We are studying the options of escalations and waiting for
a US-European stance on Saleh’s refusal to sign,” a senior
opposition leader told Reuters, declining to be named because no
formal decision had been taken.
The Gulf powers who brokered the plan to nudge Saleh from
office looked no closer to doing so, ending a meeting over the
crisis in Saudi Arabia on Sunday without a deal or an announced
strategy for reaching one.
“The council expresses its hope of removing all the
obstacles that still block a final agreement, and its Secretary
General will head to Sanaa for that purpose,” a statement by
foreign ministers of the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council
said.
A Gulf source said a formal signing ceremony in Riyadh on
Sunday in which the opposition had been due to seal the deal was
postponed after Saleh’s refusal. The source gave no word on
whether or when it might be rescheduled.
The United States and neighbouring oil giant Saudi Arabia
want the Yemen standoff resolved to avert chaos that could make
a Yemen wing of al Qaeda a greater threat to the region.
But the opposition said it would not travel to Riyadh on
Sunday to join the talks, saying there was no reason to attend.
Gulf Cooperation Council mediators told Yemen’s opposition
on Saturday Saleh had been willing to sign the deal as leader of
his party but had refused in his capacity as president.
The GCC secretary-general, who was in Sanaa for the signing,
left Yemen without securing Saleh’s signature.
“This is very typical Saleh. He is trying to get more time.
He puts off the inevitable. This is part of his personality,”
said Dubai-based security analyst Theodore Karasik.
“I think a negotiated solution is slowly slipping away, and
that some type of pressure is going to have to be applied as
opposed to words.”
Yemen’s opposition said it still hoped Gulf states would get
Saleh’s signature. Both Saleh and the opposition, which includes
both Islamists and leftists, had agreed the deal in principle.
“The matter is now with the Gulf states. If they are able to
persuade Saleh, that would be good,” Mohammed Basindwa, an
opposition figure tipped as a possible interim prime minister,
said late on Saturday.
Saleh, who spoke by phone on Sunday with the Saudi and
Bahraini kings, was reported to have told them he continued to
welcome the Gulf initiative, Yemeni state media said.
A deal, if it is brought back on the table, would see Saleh
appoint a prime minister from the opposition to head a
transitional government, which would set a presidential vote for
60 days after he leaves. It would also grant immunity from
prosecution to Saleh, his family and aides.
Protesters say they will stay on the streets until Saleh
leaves. They also called for him to be put on trial for
corruption and the deaths of the estimated 144 protesters.
In further violence, gunmen launched attacks with
rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire on Sunday against a
government building in the southern province of Abyan, killing
three soldiers guarding the site and wounding four others, a
local official said. He blamed the attack on al Qaeda.
In a separate attack further east, three Yemeni soldiers
were killed when an unidentified gunman opened fire at an army
patrol in Hadramaut province, a local security source said.
Violence has escalated recently in south Yemen, where
analysts say the government, which has been trying to contain
separatists in the south and Shi’ite rebels in the north, fears
secessionists may also be trying to take advantage of the
leadership crisis to renew a push for separation.
Analysts say a 30-day window for Saleh to resign would give
plenty of time for disgruntled forces from the old guard to stir
up trouble in Yemen, where half the population owns a gun and al
Qaeda has gained a foothold in its mountainous regions.
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