Yemen transition deal teeters as Saleh fails to sign

A deal to remove Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh looked doomed after he refused to sign, raising the threat of more instability in the Arab state.

The pact would have made Saleh, a shrewd political survivor who has been in power for 33 years, the third ruler ousted by a wave of pro-democracy uprisings sweeping the Arab world. He had been due to sign the deal on Saturday.

Yemen's opposition, furious over the last-minute change of heart that it described as political manoeuvring, said it was considering escalating pressure on the president to step aside after three months of street protests demanding he go.

"We are studying the options of escalations and waiting for a US-European stance on Saleh's refusal to sign," a senior opposition leader told Reuters, declining to be named because no formal decision had been taken.

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) -- the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait -- who brokered the plan looked no closer to easing Saleh out, ending a meeting over the crisis in Riyadh on Sunday without a deal or an announced strategy for reaching one.

"The council expresses its hope of removing all the obstacles that still block a final agreement, and its Secretary General will head to Sanaa for that purpose," a statement by GCC foreign ministers said.

The United States and neighbouring oil giant Saudi Arabia want the Yemen standoff resolved to avert chaos that could make a Yemen wing of al Qaeda a greater threat to the region.

GCC mediators told Yemen's opposition on Saturday that Saleh had been willing to sign the deal as leader of his party but had refused in his capacity as president.

The opposition said it would not travel to Riyadh on Sunday to join the talks, saying there was no reason to attend.

The GCC secretary-general, who was in Sanaa for the signing, left Yemen without securing Saleh's signature and a GCC source said Sunday's formal signing ceremony in Riyadh was postponed with no word on whether or when it might be rescheduled.

"This is very typical Saleh. He is trying to get more time. He puts off the inevitable. This is part of his personality," said Dubai-based security analyst Theodore Karasik.

"I think a negotiated solution is slowly slipping away, and that some type of pressure is going to have to be applied as opposed to words."

Yemen's opposition said it still hoped Gulf states would get Saleh's signature. Both Saleh and the opposition, which includes both Islamists and leftists, had agreed the deal in principle.

"The matter is now with the Gulf states. If they are able to persuade Saleh, that would be good," Mohammed Basindwa, an opposition figure tipped as a possible interim prime minister, said late on Saturday.

Saleh, who spoke by phone on Sunday with the Saudi and Bahraini kings, was reported to have told them he continued to welcome the Gulf initiative, Yemeni state media said.

A deal, if it is brought back on the table, would see Saleh appoint a prime minister from the opposition to head a transitional government, which would set a presidential vote for 60 days after he leaves. It would also grant immunity from prosecution to Saleh, his family and aides.

Protesters say they will stay on the streets until Saleh leaves. They also called for him to be put on trial for corruption and the deaths of the estimated 144 protesters.

In further violence, gunmen launched attacks with rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire on Sunday against a government building in the southern province of Abyan, killing three soldiers guarding the site and wounding four others, a local official said. He blamed the attack on al Qaeda.

In a separate attack further east, three Yemeni soldiers were killed when an unidentified gunman opened fire at an army patrol in Hadramaut province, a local security source said.

An attack on a power station on Sunday in Maarib, east of the capital, cut electricity supplies and forced rationing in Sanaa, Hudeida and Taizz, a government official said, blaming the attack on tribesmen who back the opposition.

The official offered no evidence about the political affiliation of the attackers, who he also blamed for cutting a road that is used to supply Sanaa with petrol. A resident of the city reported fuel queues noticeably longer than usual.

Violence has escalated recently in southern Yemen, where analysts say the government, which has been trying to contain separatists in the south and Shi'ite rebels in the north, fears secessionists may also be trying to take advantage of the leadership crisis to renew a push for separation.

Analysts say a 30-day window for Saleh to resign would give plenty of time for disgruntled forces from the old guard to stir up trouble in Yemen, where half the population owns a gun and al Qaeda has gained a foothold in its mountainous regions.