Envoy Meets With Leader of Yemen on Accord

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Source: The New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Obama sent his counterterrorism chief to Saudi Arabia over the weekend to meet with Yemen’s badly injured president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, with the envoy telling him that the only way to get American aid flowing again was to sign an accord that would effectively remove Mr. Saleh from power.

The envoy, John O. Brennan, a former C.I.A. station chief in Saudi Arabia who has been the administration’s middleman to the embattled Yemeni leader, is presumed to have urged Mr. Saleh not to return to Sana, the Yemeni capital, following weeks of statements from administration officials that they believe his return would incite more violence. Mr. Saleh was rushed to Riyadh, the Saudi capital, after he was severely burned in a bombing of his presidential compound on June 3. He appeared on television last week for the first time since the attack, and much of his skin was covered during the appearance.

In a written statement on Sunday, the White House said Mr. Brennan “called on President Saleh to fulfill expeditiously his pledge to sign” an agreement brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council, which would lead to a transition ending his 33 years in office and grant the president immunity. The statement said that “much needed assistance will flow to Yemen as soon as the G.C.C. proposal is signed and implemented.”

The Yemeni economy is on the brink of collapse, in part because of the months of unrest.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/11/world/middleeast/11yemen.html