Agencies/Sanaa
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said yesterday he is ready for a power transfer through early elections, saying he is “committed” to a plan brokered by Gulf states. “You who are running after power, let us head together toward the ballot boxes,” Saleh said in a speech aired on state television on the 49th anniversary of the September 26, 1962 revolution that saw Yemen proclaimed a republic. “We are committed to implementing the Gulf initiative as it is and signed by Vice President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi whom we have authorised in a presidential decree.” Saleh has repeatedly refused to sign the Gulf-brokered power transfer deal by which he would hand his powers over to Hadi in return for immunity from prosecution. On September 12, he authorised Hadi to negotiate a power transfer with the opposition. In his televised speech yesterday, Saleh called for “complete elections—presidential, parliamentary, and local—if they were agreed upon. Otherwise, we are committed to the Gulf initiative.” The Gulf Co-operation Council deal was meant to be finalised in the past week. But Yemeni security forces and Saleh’s loyalists have been locked in fighting with defected army units and dissident tribesmen since last week. The security forces have also repeatedly attacked protesters camped at Sanaa’s Change Square. The violence has left 173 people dead in one week, according to figures obtained from medics, the opposition and tribal sources. Saleh, who was hospitalised in Saudi Arabia from bomb wounds sustained in an attack on his palace compound in Sanaa, returned on Friday promising peace. However, fighting flared as dozens were killed in Sanaa after his arrival. Yemeni officials and diplomats involved in political negotiations to ease Saleh out had said the direction the crisis takes would hinge on the president’s words yesterday evening. Protesters, watching the speech in tents in Sanaa’s Change Square, were disappointed. “We’re so used to this there’s nothing new in the speech. It’s the same story, the same politics, he talks to us as if we’re children,” said Saeed, 30, a protester watching the speech in the central square. “He’s just talking and talking about this initiative and we haven’t seen any action.” Earlier yesterday Yemeni soldiers killed two tribal fighters and wounded 18 anti-government protesters. For the first time since the battles between opposition and loyalist forces erupted in Sanaa, the clashes spread outside the capital. Two pro-opposition tribal fighters were killed in the mountainous outskirts of Sanaa when the army shelled an area where the two sides had been clashing. In Sanaa, soldiers used live rounds against thousands of unarmed protesters marched out of their protest camp and into the capital’s busy streets. “I saw soldiers from above, in buildings and on the bridge,” said Mohamed al-Mas, 21, a protester whose back was drenched in blood from a gunshot wound. “Then the gunfire started and I ran back, but I suddenly felt the shot in the back.” The UN Security Council urged Yemen yesterday to allow more access to humanitarian aid. Doctors treating protesters have complained they are running low on medicine and the International Committee of the Red Cross says its workers have been threatened and assaulted. Saleh’s arrival in Sanaa came despite the entreaties of Western and Gulf states for the leader to end his 33 years in power. The European Union’s Catherine Ashton condemned the violence and called on Saleh to sign the Gulf-brokered power transition plan. Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah also called for the adoption of the Gulf plan. “We call on all sides to show self restraint and reason to prevent the risk of Yemen sliding into more violence and fighting,” King Abdullah said in published remarks. “We believe that the Gulf initiative is still the only way out of the Yemeni crisis.” A supporter of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh chants slogans after he finished his televised speech, during a rally in Sanaa yesterday