Embattled president, being treated for shrapnel wounds in Riyadh, will not return to Yemen Embattled Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, being treated for shrapnel wounds in Riyadh, will not return home, a top Saudi official told AFP yesterday, contrary to Sana’a’s claims that he will return soon. “The Yemeni president will not return to Yemen,” the official said, requesting anonymity.
“It has not been decided where he will stay,” the official added, apparently suggesting that Saleh might eventually leave Saudi Arabia for another country.
The official did not specify whether the decision not to return home was taken by Saleh himself.
But a Yemeni official promptly denied the claim.
“President Saleh will return in the coming few days,” deputy foreign minister Abdo Al Janadi said.
Hamad call
The veteran leader was flown to Riyadh on June 4 on board a Saudi medical aircraft, a day after he was wounded in a bomb explosion at a mosque inside his Sana’a presidential compound. He has not been seen in public since the attack.
Reports on the condition of Saleh’s health have been sketchy, but Bahrain’s King Hamad Bin Eisa Al Khalifa was reported to have called him on Thursday, two days after Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz had a phone conversation with him.
In Saleh’s absence, his deputy Abed Rabo Mansour Hadi has been coming under intensive local and international pressure to heed the demands of protesters to set up an interim ruling council, which would prevent Saleh returning to power.
Two-week deadline
On Wednesday, Hadi met representatives of youth protests which have raged since late January demanding the ouster of Saleh.
They pressed him to give a clear stance on their demands, and gave him two weeks to respond. The meeting followed talks between Hadi and the parliamentary opposition in which they agreed on calming the situation as a first step towards reviving the political process.
Washington on Thursday welcomed Hadi’s talks with opponents of Saleh. “We have been encouraged that Vice-President Hadi has started some outreach to the opposition and started some dialogue,” said US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland .
“Because, as you know, we believe that there is no time to lose in moving on to the democratic future that Yemen deserves,” she added.
From/ gulfnews