SANA'A – Three leading Yemeni parties have rejected a proposal to turn the country into a federation of semi-autonomous regions, in the latest blow to a national dialogue designed to put Yemen on track to democratic elections. The national dialogue, launched in March as part of a 2011 Gulf-brokered power transfer deal that eased long-serving president Ali Abdullah Saleh out of office, has been struggling with demands by southern separatists to restore South Yemen, which merged with North Yemen in 1990. The three parties rejecting the proposal were the former South Yemen's Socialist Party, Saleh's General People's Congress and the southern Nasserist party, said Abdullah Noman, a member of a committee responsible for drafting the plan. Noman said the proposal had not fixed the number of provinces into which the new federation is to be divided - a key stumbling block in the national dialogue. The Saba state news agency said Yemeni President Abdrabbu Mansour Hadi would chair a panel to decide that issue. Some southern secessionists are hoping to divide the country into two major regions, with the south having significant control over its own affairs. But a number of northern Yemeni parties favor a multi-region federation. Southerners fear that having several regions would dilute their authority and deprive them of control over major southern provinces such as that of Hadramout. Most of Yemen's oil reserves are in the south. – Reuters
