Reuters/Sanaa
Yemen’s president urged the opposition to join talks in Saudi Arabia to try to end weeks of turmoil and violence in which at least three more people were killed yesterday. Faced with mass demonstrations demanding an end to his 32-year rule, President Ali Abdullah Saleh is clinging to power in the poorest country in the Middle East, from which Al Qaeda has planned attacks on the US. The Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) on Monday invited government and opposition representatives to talks in Saudi Arabia, at a date yet to be set, with the US pressing the veteran political survivor to negotiate with his opponents. Saleh, who ignored a transition-of-power plan offered by the opposition on Saturday, accepted the Arab Gulf states’ invitation yesterday and urged the opposition to follow suit. “I promise that we will make every effort to return things to normal through talks with rational people from the Joint Meetings Party,” he said, referring to the main opposition coalition. “We repeat our invitation to them to sit at the table of dialogue and we call for a restraint from violence.” Aides to a prominent general, Ali Mohsen, who turned against Saleh last month, said he had also accepted the call for talks in Saudi Arabia. But the Joint Meetings Party was non-committal in its response. “We welcome the (GCC) position on respecting the Yemeni people’s choices and we will also welcome any efforts made for the sake of President Saleh’s speedy departure,” spokesman Mohamed al-Sabri said. The US has long seen Saleh as a pivotal ally in its fight against Al Qaeda. In return for billions of dollars in military aid, he has pledged to fight militants and allowed unpopular US air strikes on their camps. But on Monday US officials said Washington was ratcheting up pressure on Saleh to work towards a power transition plan. “It looks increasingly like he needs to step aside,” one US official said, adding the US was trying to “turn up the heat” on Saleh to come to terms with the opposition. Three people died and 15 were wounded in the capital yesterday when Saleh supporters clashed with protesters, the defence ministry said. General Mohsen said the incident was an attempt to assassinate him. A statement said Mohsen came out to meet a delegation of tribal mediators sent by Saleh and snipers then opened fire. “The issue appeared to be a trick to assassinate Ali Mohsen, intermediaries and a group of tribal sheikhs,” it said. 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. Opposition sources say talks have stalled because Saleh is manoeuvring to ensure he and his family do not face prosecution over corruption accusations raised by the opposition. On Monday security forces and armed men in civilian clothes fired on protesters in Taez, south of Sanaa, and the Red Sea port of Hudaydah, killing 21 people. Yesterday, security forces and armed men again attacked a crowd of tens of thousands of protesters in Taez, residents said, and protesters responded by hurling rocks. Doctors said around 30 protesters were wounded by gunfire and beatings. Around 300 were wounded in total, they said, most suffering from teargas inhalation. “We were walking down the street peacefully but the thugs came after us with bats and knives and guns. They beat us and fired on us,” a protester said by telephone. Tribesmen kidnapped two soldiers in Loder, a southern city in the flashpoint Abyan province where militants also operate, a local official said. Earlier yesterday, officials said they found the bodies of two shot soldiers outside Loder. Frustration with Saleh’s intransigence may push Yemenis, many of them heavily armed and no strangers to wars and insurgencies, closer to a violent power struggle. “I think Saleh will fall within a week,” said Yemeni analyst Ali Seif Hassan. “Especially after what happened in Taez. The people cannot stand it anymore. They are not going to wait in their tents after they saw so many of their peers killed.”