Saudi, Yemeni leaders discuss Houthi rebels, al-Qaeda, pirates

Riyadh - The president of Yemen and the Saudi King on Tuesday met near Riyadh to discuss terrorism, internal conflict and piracy. The meeting, at King Abdullah bin Abdelaziz's royal campsite east of Riyadh, was King Abdullah's first with Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh since Houthi rebels near the Saudi-Yemeni border accepted a ceasefire earlier this month.

It also preceded a conference of donors to Yemen, led by the oil-rich countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), scheduled to be held in Riyadh on February 27.

The leaders' discussions focused on joint efforts to prevent Saudi-born al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden from establishing a base in Yemen, and broader joint efforts to combat extremism and piracy, a Saudi diplomat told the German Press Agency dpa.

The Saudi delegation stressed the importance of the Yemeni government's "taking concrete and active steps to crush the rebels, eliminate their financing and foreign support, and reveal their links and those who support them," the diplomat said.

Saudi Arabia, which entered Yemen's conflict with the Shiite rebels along the Saudi-Yemeni border in November, has repeatedly accused Iran of supporting the rebels.

Both countries have for years fought a campaign against al-Qaeda militants who have claimed hundreds of lives in attacks in both countries.

Yemeni officials hope that increased attention to the country, the Arab world's poorest, following a failed attack on a US airplane over Detroit in December, and the intensified fighting with the rebels last autumn and winter, will produce an increase in international aid.

GCC Secretary General Abdel-Rahman al-Atiya said that a team had been assigned to study Yemen's development needs for the 2011-2015 period.

They would be based on a study of the problems faced in carrying out development projects in the four years since a February 2006 donors conference in London granted Yemen 5.7 billion dollars.

GCC countries contributed 3.7 billion of the total pledged in 2006.

Al-Atiya said the recommendations of the team will be submitted to Yemeni authorities and donor countries at a meeting attended by the Islamic Development Bank, the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, and the OPEC Fund for Development.

Representatives of donors from the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, the United States, Japan, and the United Kingdom will also attend, he said.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/310850,saudi-yemeni-leaders-discuss-houthi-rebels-al-qaeda-pirates.html.