SANA'A: Yemen's acting president agreed Monday with opposition parties to begin discussions on how to transfer power from the country's embattled president, an opposition spokesman said. The official, Abdullah Oubal, said the agreement provided for the opposition and President Ali Abdullah Saleh's ruling party to open a dialogue to find a way to ease Saleh out of office in accordance with proposals put forward by Yemen's Gulf neighbors. Saleh has publicly accepted the proposals in the past, but has been evasive about implementing them. Monday's agreement may not end the country's political impasse or prevent renewed clashes between forces loyal to Saleh and armed tribesmen opposed to his rule. However, it suggests that the acting president, Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi, is exercising his constitutional powers despite the vast influence wielded by Saleh's inner circle and family. The meeting was the first between an alliance of opposition parties and Hadi, who has been Yemen's acting president since Saleh left for Saudi Arabia on June 5 for medical treatment from wounds he suffered in an attack on his compound in Sana'a. A senior Yemeni official in Riyadh, where Saleh is hospitalized, said Tuesday that the president's condition was stable but not improving. Monday's meeting, thought to have been convened under Western pressure, took place at Hadi's Sana'a residence, which witnesses said was surrounded by members of the special forces, an elite outfit led by Saleh's son and one-time heir apparent, Ahmed. Top ruling party officials Sultan Al-Burkany and Ahmed Ben Daghr joined Hadi on the government side for the negotiations, according to opposition spokesman Oubal. In the capital Sana'a, news of the agreement between Hadi and the opposition appeared to have no immediate impact. Airstrikes, meanwhile, targeted militants in control of a southern Yemeni town, killing three suspected extremists Monday. The Yemeni officials said the airstrikes struck Jaar, one of two militant-held towns in the province of Abyan. The other town is Abyan's capital, Zinjibar. In Taiz, military officials said gunmen destroyed two tanks and six vehicles belonging to Saleh's presidential guard. In a separate incident, an army colonel was killed in a blast as he drove near the port city of Aden in southern Yemen, according to security officials. They said the blast was likely caused by a bomb planted in his car, but they would not speculate on motives.Assassination plotters held Meanwhile, Yemeni forces arrested several people for attempting to kill President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The official newspaper of Saleh's party said several people suspected of involvement in an attempt to kill him had been arrested and were being questioned, in an apparent reference to the attack that wounded Saleh and members of his cabinet. It said interrogations had revealed “important, grave” facts “related to Al-Mushtarak” – an element of the Arabic name for the Joint Meetings coalition of opposition parties seeking his immediate departure. The paper provided no further details.
