UN envoy in new push for Yemen power transfer

A U.N. envoy returned to Yemen on Thursday in a fresh bid to persuade Ali Abdullah Saleh to hand over power under a Gulf-brokered plan amid reports the president is inching toward accepting the proposal.

Officials said Jamal Benomar, who arrived in Sanaa on Thursday, was due to meet Vice President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and opposition leaders in an effort to finalize the deal devised by Yemen's wealthy Gulf neighbors to end nine months of protests against Saleh's 33-year rule.

"The important thing is we need actions rather than words to complete the process," said British ambassador to Yemen Jonathan Wilks in an interview posted on opposition website al-Sahwa, adding that 90 percent of the disagreements between the opposition and Saleh's ruling party had been resolved.

Saleh has three times agreed to the Gulf plan only to pull out of signing at the very last minute, but diplomats have warned the veteran leader against backing down once more. "If we do not succeed in finalizing the negotiations around the Gulf initiative and entering the transitional period, discussions will begin about the next steps, including sanctions," Wilks said in comments published in Arabic.

Yemen has been paralyzed by months of protests that have put one of the poorest countries in the Arab world on the brink of civil war, and loosened already weak central government control over whole swathes of territory.

That has fanned fears in neighboring oil-giant Saudi Arabia and the international community that al Qaeda's Yemen-based wing could use the upheaval to imperil shipping routes through the Gulf of Aden and plot attacks on the region and beyond.