Saleh 'ready to sign' power transfer deal

AL Jazeera Middle East

After two previous pullbacks from similar promises, Yemeni president says he will now sign deal on Sunday. Last Modified: 20 May 2011 05:54

Yemen's opposition has called for the GCC to stop allowing Saleh to "gain more time" [EPA] Yemen's president has made yet another promise that he will sign a deal that would end his decades-long rule, a spokesman says, in a move that has been greeted with caution by the opposition. Ali Abdullah Saleh, the Yemeni president, promised on Thursday that he would sign the deal, mediated by the Gulf Co-operation Council, on Sunday. The opposition has accused the embattled leader of stalling. Saleh has previously rejected the agreement on two occasions, most recently 24 hours before his latest promise to sign. Yemen continues to reel from three months of street protests that have seen mass demonstrations by citizens and disavowals of Saleh's authority from top army commanders. The United States, which considers Yemen a key ally in fighting al-Qaeda, appears to have backed away from supporting Saleh, with Barack Obama, the US president, calling on him to stand down. In a speech regarding US policy in the Arab world on Thursday, Obama referred directly to the situation in Yemen, saying: "President Saleh needs to follow through on his commitment to transfer power.'' 'Ready at any time' Ahmed al-Sufi, Saleh's spokesman, said on Thursday that the Yemeni leader was ready to sign the agreement for the transfer of power during celebrations for Yemen National Day at the presidential palace in Sanaa, the capital. Talks on defusing the crisis and arranging for Saleh to leave office appeared to break down on Wednesday, when Saleh refused to sign the GCC-mediated deal that would allow for him to leave power in exchange for immunity from prosecution. The refusal prompted Abdul-Latif al-Zayyani, the GCC's chief, to leave the country. Al-Sufi says he will return to attend the newly scheduled signing on Sunday. Click here for more of Al Jazeera's special coverage According to the spokesman, Saleh had changed his mind due to the application of strong diplomatic pressure from Gulf and other countries. "The president is ready at any time to sign," he said. The GCC did not confirm that any deal would be signed on Sunday, only saying that its foreign ministers would be meeting on that day in the Saudi capital of Riyadh to discuss the situation in Yemen. Al-Zayyani will be attending that meeting, it said. The Yemeni opposition has dismissed Saleh's promise to sign as a way of delaying his exit. "If the president decides to sign on Sunday, nothing will stop him," opposition spokesman Mohammed al-Sabri said. "We are sure that the president is playing games with time." Al-Sabri said the GCC must take a clear position on whether or not Saleh was in favour of the decision. "They cannot go along with the president's strategies to gain more time," he said. Thousands gather Saleh's previous pullbacks from promises to sign the deal have been on matters of constitutional technicality. His most recent refusal was over the issue of who would sign the deal from the opposition's side. On Wednesday, he said he was not willing to accept Mohammed Basindwa, an opposition figure who has been tipped as a possible interim prime minister, as a signatory to the deal, on the grounds that Basindwa, an independent, was not a member of a "legally recognised [party]" in parliament. Tens of thousands of Yemenis have held protests since late January calling for Saleh to end his 33-year rule. Mass protests have posed an unprecedented challenge to the president's rule, and prompted several top military commanders and ruling party officials to defect to the opposition. On Thursday, thousands of protesters gathered in Taiz and Sanaa's University Square, which has become the centre of anti-Saleh protests. "We will continue to protest despite our awareness that we could be killed or arrested. We are not afraid," said Tawakul Karman, an activist at the demonstration in Sanaa. A violent crackdown on protests by government forces has reportedly killed more than 150 people. Under the GCC-mediated deal, Saleh would leave office within 30 days in return for immunity from prosecution. A national unity government would then be formed, under which elections for a new president would be held after two months. Yemen's central government was already weak before the protests began, dealing with a rebellion in the north, a secessionist movement in the south and the presence of al-Qaeda fighters in its weakly governed provinces.

Source: Agencies

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