Sanaa - Yemen's ruling party held open the possibility that President Ali Abdullah Saleh would sign a deal on Sunday that would soon ease him out of office as Washington heaped pressure on the entrenched leader to transfer power.
The move was an unexpected reversal just a day after last-minute snags appeared to derail the deal, which would require Saleh to resign within a month but grant him immunity from prosecution to ensure a dignified exit.
“Maybe it will be signed on Sunday,” a ruling party official said of the deal, which has already fallen through twice.
An Yemeni opposition official said a Gulf mediator confirmed that Saleh would on Sunday sign the deal forged by Yemen's oil-exporting neighbours, who hope it will end months of protests that have paralysed Yemen's already faltering economy.
The United States and Saudi Arabia, both targets of foiled attacks by al-Qaeda's Yemen wing, are keen to end the Yemeni stalemate to avert deeper chaos that could give one of the militant network's most potent arms more room to thrive.
Washington has increased pressure on Saleh to sign and implement the deal, and President Barack Obama said in a speech on US policy in the Arab world on Thursday that Saleh needed to “follow through on his commitment to transfer power”.
Pressure was also mounting on Yemen from its wealthy Gulf Arab neighbours, who said their foreign ministers would meet on Sunday to discuss the crisis but made no mention in their statement of a signing ceremony.
“The ministers will discuss in their meeting the results of the latest visit of the Co-operation Council's secretary-general to Sanaa over the Gulf initiative to resolve the crisis in Yemen,” the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council said. - Reuters