GCC plan for departure of Yemen president

protesters shout slogans during a demonstration against President Ali Abdullah Saleh's regime SANAA  ? AFP Yemen's opposition has remained adamant that veteran President Ali Abdullah Saleh step down immediately, ahead of talks set between Gulf mediators and the government. Gulf foreign ministers will meet a Sanaa government

delegation in Abu Dhabi to discuss an initiative to end the months-long standoff between protesters and the Yemeni authorities, a GCC statement said.
Abu Dhabi "will host an extraordinary meeting of foreign ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council, with a Yemeni government delegation," on Tuesday, it said.
GCC foreign ministers met on Sunday in the Saudi capital Riyadh with a Yemeni opposition delegation seeking details on a plan for the departure of Saleh, who has faced protests since January calling for his ouster.
More than 125 people have been killed in the protests so far.
Meanwhile the UN Security Council will discuss for the first time the mounting crisis in the country, diplomats said.
The 15-nation Security Council's first formal meeting on Yemen will start at 19:00 GMT on Tuesday, following a proposition by Germany, diplomats said.
Hundreds of thousands of men and women protested in Sanaa on Sunday against Saleh's call for an end to mixed-gender demonstrations against his regime, and calling for him to go.

Hundreds of protesters in the Yemeni capital were wounded by bullets or injured by tear gas on Tuesday when security forces dispersed a march demanding the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, medics said.
Security forces attacked them with firearms and tear gas grenades.  1,000 suffered from tear-gas inhalation, an AFP video reporter quoted a medical source at a Sanaa hospital as saying.
Security forces also used water cannon to disperse demonstrators as police cars carried away many wounded protesters, witnesses told AFP.

Early on Monday, residents also took to the streets in the Red Sea city of Al-Hudaydah to protest against the use of force against the Sanaa demonstrators. Medical sources reported 45 people wounded, 12 of them by bullets, when security forces intervened. Similar demonstrations to show solidarity with the Sanaa protests were also held late on Sunday in Taez and Dhamar, south of the capital, and the main southern port city of Aden.
After the Sunday meeting in Riyadh, leading Common Forum opposition activist Mohammed al-Sabri told AFP on Monday: "The opposition has succeeded in conveying its point of view to Gulf Arab monarchies" on the need for Saleh to step down.Gulf Arab monarchies "must understand that every day Saleh's regime remains in power will be on the account of their stability," he added.

Speaking after Sunday's talks, Sultan al-Atwani of the Unionist Nasserist Party said: "We demand the abdication" of Saleh. "We favour the Gulf initiative, but we reject the paragraph in the final communique of the April 10 GCC foreign ministers' meeting proposing a transfer of presidential powers; we demand the abdication" of the president, he said.

On April 10, the GCC Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates appealed to Saleh to "announce the transfer of his powers to the vice-president" Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi.
It also called for the formation in Yemen of "a government of national unity led by the opposition" that would be responsible for "establishing a constitution and organising elections". Over the past week, US and European diplomats have been working to bring the opposition and Saleh's camp together, a Western diplomat told AFP."The Common Forum has obtained American and European assurances on the success of the GCC initiative, especially for a rapid departure of President Saleh", said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity. But Sabri said the parliamentary opposition does not represent the demonstrators, apparently fearful of the reaction of protesters on the streets. Speaking in Bahrain, where he is attending a conference on piracy, Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Kurbi said Sunday's meeting "marked the beginning of a process and not its end. This process will eventually lead to a transition of power."

Last week, Saleh's office said in response to the GCC mediation bid that the president has "no reservation about transferring power peacefully and smoothly within the framework of the constitution".
Saleh has so far insisted on overseeing any transition, fearful of being hounded out of office and faced with prosecution like his ally, Egypt's former president Hosni Mubarak, who resigned on February 11 following mass protests.