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| Arabia |
| Yemen, Qatar to revive peace agreement with rebels |
| 2010-07-14 |
| SANAA - Yemen and Qatar have agreed to try to revive a Qatari-mediated peace agreement with northern Yemeni Shi’ite rebels, state media reported on Tuesday. The announcement followed a visit to Yemen by Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, whose country brokered a short-lived ceasefire between the government and rebels in 2007 and a peace accord in 2008. In February, Yemen reached a new truce with the rebels to halt sporadic fighting that has displaced 350,000 people since 2004 in the impoverished country. “Good proposals are being carried out today and more will be implemented tomorrow,” Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said after meeting Sheikh Hamad. “(A return to war) is not relevant and is totally rejected,” the state news agency Saba quoted Saleh as saying. State media gave no details of the new mediation effort by Qatar and there was no immediate reaction from the rebels, who belong to the minority Zaidi sect of Shi’ite Islam, and complain of religious and socio-economic discrimination by the government. Sanaa denies the accusations. Yemen is also struggling with a southern secessionist movement and faces a resurgent regional wing of al Qaeda, which claimed responsibility for a failed bomb attack on a U.S.-bound airliner in December. Yemen’s Western and Saudi allies want Sanaa to resolve domestic conflicts and consolidate power so that it can focus on fighting al Qaeda, which is seen as exploiting instability in the Arabian Peninsula country. |
| Posted by:Steve White |