UN envoy: President Saleh is to leave Yemen for medical treatment abroad

By Mohammed al-Kibsi The president of the republic Ali Abdullah Saleh is expected to leave the country for medical treatment for injuries sustained in an attack on his palace in June, said the UN envoy to Yemen Jamal Benomar on Thursday. President Saleh earlier had spent three months recuperating in Riyadh capital of Saudi Arabia. "My understanding is that President Saleh still requires serious medical treatment and medical treatment that he will require outside of Yemen," Benomar told reporters after briefing the UN Security Council in New York. "Efforts are being made for arrangements to be concluded for him to get this treatment," he said. Some diplomats revealed that President Saleh would head to the United States or Germany for treatment and that procedures have been taken for granting him the required visas. President Saleh signed a peace deal brokered by GCC and backed by UNSC last month in Riyadh after ten months of political unrest and protests left hundreds dead. Under the deal he agreed to transfer power to his deputy, and formally to hand over power to the will elected president in a pre presidential elections scheduled to be held in February. According to the deal Saleh has given his deputy Abdu Raboo Mansour Hadi full authorities to run the country affairs and to prepare for the presidential elections and to compromise with the opposition for amending the constitution and the elections law. Benomar said the new government needed to re-establish control over large parts of the country now under the control of al-Qaeda. And he hailed the progress achieved for brining the military back to barracks and removing trenches and militants from the capital and main cities of Yemen. Benomar had affirmed that the political situation in Yemen is developing and is progressing positively. Benomar told Saba news agency prior to his departure from Sana’a to New York last week that there is some positive progress at the political situation in Yemen after singing the GCC deal and its executive mechanism and forming the national unity government adding that there is already a fixed time for the early presidential elections and that a military committee was assigned and that this military committee started making decision for lifting arms and militants from the streets. He added that the international community has been following up the situations on the ground adding that he is to present his report to the Security Council that will held its session over Yemen issue on the 21 of December. “The UN Security Council is closely watching the political transition in Yemen and wants to see Yemen whose streets are owned by the people and not the military units or the militias,” he told Saba news agency. He also warned groups against attempts to stop the transition process.