Yemen is willing to send peacekeeping soldiers to Iraq if the deployment had U.N. backing and was under the control of the world body, Foreign Ministry officials said Friday.
| That'd be interesting. Maybe they could pot some of their kinsmen... |
The officials told The Associated Press that Yemen was discussing plans to send forces to Iraq. Yemen’s move follows that of Jordan’s, whose ruler, King Abdullah II, said a day earlier that his country might become the first Arab state to send troops to Iraq. Abdullah told the British Broadcasting Corp. "Newsnight" program, that "I presume that if the Iraqis ask us for help directly it would be very difficult for us to say no." Yemen also is considering sending forces to the African nation of Sudan to operate in a similar peacekeeping capacity and under U.N. authority, the officials said. The officials did not elaborate on why the government would send troops to Sudan, but they apparently were referring to the humanitarian crisis in Sudan’s western state of Darfur. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan — who is in Sudan on a three-week tour of the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Europe — has raised the possibility of sending international troops to Darfur if Sudan’s government cannot safeguard the people of the region. Human rights groups accuse the Sudanese government of backing militias of Arab herders, known as the Janjaweed, in a campaign to forcibly remove African farming communities from the vast western region where they have coexisted for centuries.
EXCELLENT! First Jordan signs up, now Yemen. Dominoes are falling. |