Members of Yemen's political opposition dismissed an offer from Gulf Arab neighbors on Wednesday to resume mediation in the political crisis, which has brought the country to the brink of civil war.
Gulf states, fearful of a war on their doorstep, have tried repeatedly to ease President Ali Abdullah Saleh out of office after six months of protests against him and a bout of open war in the capital Sanaa.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), a bloc of neighboring monarchies, did not say how their new offer was different to several previous efforts to end the Yemen crisis.
Sultan al-Atwani, a member of a group of opposition parties which had accepted a previous deal only to see Saleh reject it, called any new bid doomed from the start.
"It would have been better for the GCC to be braver, and specify who has rejected this initiative and brought Yemen to where it is now," he told .
Saleh, undergoing treatment in Saudi Arabia for wounds suffered in an attack on his compound last month, has backed out of several previous deals to step down.
In May, fighting erupted between his forces and those of tribal leaders and army units which had turned on him, reducing parts of Sanaa to ruin. A shaky ceasefire has held since Saleh left for treatment.
Youth groups over which the opposition parties have little influence have rejected main elements of past GCC deals, including the prospect Saleh could be immune from prosecution.
0 comments:
Post a Comment