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| Arabia |
| Yemen offers opposition national unity government |
| 2010-05-22 |
| Yemen - Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh on Friday offered to form a national unity government with the opposition, and announced an amnesty for imprisoned southern separatists and Shiite rebels. In a televised speech ahead of Saturday's 20th anniversary of Yemen's unification, Saleh invited all political groups inside and outside the country to a “responsible national dialogue, within the framework of the constitutional institutions.' “According to this dialogue, it is possible to form a government of all the influential political parties represented in the parliament,' said Saleh, speaking in the city of Taez, 230 kilometres (140 miles) southwest of Sanaa. The pardon would affect an estimated 800 prisoners linked to the southern separatists and about 2,000 Shiite rebels or sympathisers in the north. Saleh said that the Yemeni Socialist Party, which is agitating to re-establish south Yemen as an independent state, would be a principal partner in the political dialogue. The YSP was the principal partner of the May 22, 1990 unification with the north, but it is now in opposition and most of its leaders live in exile. Other major opposition parties in parliament include the Islamist Al-Islah party, popular among tribesmen who form the backbone of Yemen's traditional society. Pro-independence demonstrations have multiplied in the south in recent months amid a worsening economic situation and charges of discrimination in favour of northerners. South Yemen was independent from the British withdrawal in 1967 until it united with the north in 1990. An attempt to break away again in 1994 sparked a short-lived civil war that ended with it being overrun by northern troops. |
| Posted by:Steve White |