Yemen opposition welcomes conditional dialogue with the ruling party

By Nasser Arrabyee/02/01/2010

The Yemen opposition coalition said Sunday they would return to dialogue if the ruling party cancelled all the steps it had taken unilaterally.

The steps taken by the ruling party so far include the vote on the amended electoral law, formation of the supreme commission of elections of nine judges, and the approval in principle on constitutional amendments.

“We would return to dialogue, to the point where we ended, if the ruling party cancelled the unilateral steps,” said Mohammed Abdul Malik Al Mutawakil, chairman of the supreme council of the opposition coalition.

Al Mutawakil was commenting on a letter addressed to opposition coalition from a presidential committee related to resuming the dialogue between the ruling party and opposition.

Earlier last week, the President Ali Abdullah Saleh assigned the chairman of his advisory council Shura, Abdul Azeez Abdul Ghani, and chairman of the external relations in the ruling party, Moammed Abu Lahoom, to contact the opposition resuming the dialogue.

The two parties failed over and over again to reach an agreement on political and electoral reforms since February 2009 when they declared two-year delay for the parliamentary elections to do those reforms.