President Ali Abdullah Saleh ruled out mediation by Gulf countries that have offered to seek a compromise between his regime and a growing protest movement.
The effort by the Gulf Cooperation Council has been rejected, Saleh told a crowd of supporters near the presidential palace in Sana’a on Friday.
In the southern city of Taiz, the site of bloody confrontations in the
past week that left at least fifteen protesters dead and hundreds
wounded, security forces fired bullets and tear gas at a funeral
procession today, Hussein al-Suhaili, an activist, said by telephone.
At least five people were injured, two of them seriously, said Ahmed
al-Wafi, a medic at a local hospital.
Saudi Arabia had invited Saleh and representatives of Yemen’s opposition for talks in Riyadh to end more than two months of nationwide protests and escalating violence by security forces.
Police and snipers killed 46 protesters in Sana’a on March 18, prompting several military and government officials to abandon Saleh’s regime. In the past week, several demonstrators have been killed in the southern Taiz region.
Qatar’s prime minister, Hamad Bin Jasim Bin Jaber Al Thani, said this week that the GCC effort aimed at reaching a deal that would involve Saleh stepping down. The main coalition of opposition parties had agreed to attend the talks.
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