Yemen’s leader allowed to come to US

Yemen’s Pres­i­dent Ali Abdul­lah Saleh speaks to the state media reporters Sun­day at the Pres­i­den­tial Palace in Sanaa, Yemen. Yemeni Pres­i­dent Ali Abdul­lah Saleh said he will travel to Wash­ing­ton for med­ical treat­ment and he asked Yeme­nis for for­give­ness, say­ing it is time to hand over power in a farewell speech, state media reported. (Asso­ci­ated Press)

JULIE PACE

Asso­ci­ated Press

WASHINGTON — The Obama admin­is­tra­tion will allow Yemen’s out­go­ing pres­i­dent to come to the U.S. tem­porar­ily for med­ical treat­ment, a move aimed at eas­ing the polit­i­cal tran­si­tion in Yemen, a key coun­tert­er­ror­ism partner.

A senior admin­is­tra­tion offi­cial said Ali Abdul­lah Saleh would travel to New York this week, and prob­a­bly stay in the U.S. until no later than the end of Feb­ru­ary. U.S. offi­cials believe Saleh’s exit from Yemen could lower the risk of dis­rup­tions in the lead-up to pres­i­den­tial elec­tions planned there on Feb. 21.

A pres­i­den­tial spokesman in Yemen said Saleh had left the cap­i­tal of Sanaa ear­lier Sun­day on a jet headed for the Per­sian Gulf sul­tanate of Oman. An offi­cial close to Saleh, speak­ing on con­di­tion of anonymity because he was not autho­rized to dis­cuss the trip, said the pres­i­dent would undergo med­ical exams in Oman before head­ing to the U.S.

The U.S. offi­cial did not say whether Saleh planned to return to Yemen, Oman or else­where after fin­ish­ing his treat­ment in the U.S. The offi­cial was not autho­rized to dis­cuss details about Saleh and spoke on con­di­tion of anonymity.

The Yemeni embassy in Wash­ing­ton said Saleh planned to return home in Feb­ru­ary to attend a swearing-in cer­e­mony for the country’s newly elected president.

The mer­cu­r­ial Saleh, who ruled Yemen for more than three decades, agreed to trans­fer power to his vice pres­i­dent late last year in exchange for immu­nity from pros­e­cu­tion. He had faced months of protests call­ing for his ouster, to which the Yemeni gov­ern­ment responded with a bloody crack­down, leav­ing hun­dreds of pro­test­ers dead and spark­ing wider vio­lence in the cap­i­tal with rival militia.

Even after agree­ing to leave power, Saleh con­tin­ued to wield his influ­ence behind the scenes, and U.S. offi­cials believed get­ting him out of Yemen was nec­es­sary in order to ensure the Feb­ru­ary elec­tions took place. The U.S. also wor­ried about insta­bil­ity in a nation grap­pling with grow­ing extrem­ism, includ­ing the dan­ger­ous al-Qaida branch known as al-Qaida in the Ara­bian Peninsula.

Still, Saleh’s request last month for a U.S. visa put the Obama admin­is­tra­tion in the awk­ward posi­tion of either hav­ing to bar a friendly pres­i­dent from U.S. soil or risk­ing appear­ing to har­bor an auto­crat with blood on his hands.

As U.S. offi­cials weighed Saleh’s request, they sought assur­ances that he would not seek polit­i­cal asy­lum or any type of per­ma­nent relo­ca­tion in the U.S.

“We wanted to make sure that there was an under­stand­ing that it would be for med­ical pur­poses and that’s what it is for,” John Bren­nan, Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s top coun­tert­er­ror­ism adviser, said Sunday.

Saleh was badly burned and wounded dur­ing a June rocket attack on his com­pound in Yemen. He sought med­ical treat­ment in neigh­bor­ing Saudi Ara­bia for three months. Amer­i­can offi­cials had hoped he would remain there, but the Yemeni leader returned and vio­lence wors­ened anew.

Pro­test­ers and human rights groups have crit­i­cized Saleh’s immu­nity clause and insisted he stand trial for his alleged role in pro­tester deaths.

Bren­nan said there was a divide in Yemen over Saleh’s future, with some Yeme­nis sup­port­ing Saleh’s deci­sion to seek med­ical treat­ment in the U.S. In the short-term, he said, it was imper­a­tive to ensure that the Feb­ru­ary elec­tions take place.

“We thought it was impor­tant, given where Yemen is right now as far as mov­ing for­ward with its polit­i­cal tran­si­tion, to do what we can to sup­port the gov­ern­ment and the elec­tions that are sched­uled for the 21st of Feb­ru­ary, and that seems to be on track,” he said.

Yemeni Vice Pres­i­dent Abed Rabbo Man­sour Hadi is expected to be rubber-stamped as the country’s new leader in the elec­tions, in which he is expected to be the only candidate.

Bren­nan spoke with Hadi on Sun­day, and told him the U.S. was encour­aged by his lead­er­ship dur­ing a dif­fi­cult period of tran­si­tion. With fresh demon­stra­tions likely in the weeks lead­ing up to the elec­tions, Bren­nan urged Hadi to ensure that Yemeni secu­rity forces exer­cise restraint.

The Obama administration’s approval of Saleh’s visa brought back mem­o­ries from three decades ago, when Pres­i­dent Jimmy Carter allowed the exiled shah of Iran into the U.S. for med­ical treat­ment. The deci­sion con­tributed to rapidly wors­en­ing rela­tions between Wash­ing­ton and Aya­tol­lah Ruhol­lah Khomeini’s rev­o­lu­tion in Tehran, with Iran­ian stu­dents occu­py­ing the U.S. Embassy in Iran a month later.

Fifty-two Amer­i­can hostages were held for 444 days in response to Carter’s refusal to send the shah back to Iran for trial.

Posted by AP News on Jan 22 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.