Leaders of the political opposition met on Monday with Yemen's vice president, Abed Rabbo Mansour al-Hadi, and two other senior governing party officials here in the first known meeting between the two sides since the beginning of the year.
The United States ambassador, Gerald Feierstein, had pressed both sides to meet after the attack on the presidential palace on June 3. President Ali Abdullah Saleh was seriously wounded in the attack, as were at
least five other senior officials of the governing party. The following day, Mr. Saleh and about a dozen senior political allies were transferred to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment. In accordance with Yemen's Constitution, Mr. Hadi became acting president in Mr. Saleh's absence.
Both sides described the meeting as a first step toward reconciliation. The deep distrust between the parties has only grown worse since the popular uprising calling for Mr. Saleh's ouster began in January; bickering
between the two sides has been a factor in preventing a resolution to the political stalemate in Yemen, which has left the country's economy on the verge of collapse. The meeting did not necessarily indicate movement on a transition of power, or that a plan to end the crisis, which was brokered by a bloc of Persian Gulf nations and supported by Western governments, was going to be resuscitated. Meanwhile, questions continue to be raised about Mr. Saleh's health.
Diplomats in Sana, the capital, and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he is being treated, said his condition had grown worse. But a Saudi doctor was quoted by a Yemeni news agency as saying that the president was improving. Senior Yemeni officials are being kept away from him to avoid spreading the word, including at least one minister who flew to Riyadh to talk to Mr. Saleh, according to a Yemeni official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the issue.
Hostility between the governing party and a coalition of opposition parties known as the J.M.P. is "why he have this crisis," said ohammed Tayeb, a leading official in the governing party.
One of the coalition's leaders, Mohammed Abdel-Malik al-Mutawakil, said that the coalition "now wants to establish a link between them and us." For months, the opposition coalition had refused to meet directly with the governing party, but Mr. Saleh's departure has evidently caused a change in its stance.
After the meeting, Mr. Mutawakil said that when the opposition tried to discuss a transfer of power with Mr. Hadi, the vice president, "he wanted to avoid being frank in that issue." Mr. Tayeb said that a discussion
about a transition of power was not the purpose of the meeting. The meeting was held at Mr. Hadi's home in
Sana. The vice president has not moved into the presidential palace in Mr. Saleh's absence.
Instead, Mr. Saleh's son Ahmed Ali Saleh has moved into the palace, creating serious doubts about whether the president's elatives who hold leading positions in the armed forces have recognized Mr. Hadi's leadership or would be willing to agree to a ransfer of power from Mr. Saleh, who has been president for 33 years.
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