SANAA, 17 February 2004 — Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh is expected in Riyadh for talks with Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, in a bid to calm tension over a Saudi border screen, Yemeni official sources said yesterday.
Saleh’s talks in the Kingdom follow last week’s meetings that brought together Yemeni and Saudi border and security officials for discussions over the fence, which Yemen says is being built in a common area designated by a 2000 border treaty as a free grazing area.
Yemeni officials say the barrier violates the 2000 Jeddah treaty, which stipulates that an area of 20 kilometers along the line of the border be allocated for pasturing activities from both sides of the border.
However, Lt. Gen. Talal Angawi, director general of the Saudi Border Guard, said in remarks last week that the concrete-filled pipeline, was being laid inside the Saudi territory. He said the fence aimed to curb infiltration and arms smuggling operations across the borders into Saudi territory.
Angawi also dismissed comparisons in some Yemeni opposition newspapers between the Saudi barrier and Israel’s barrier through the West Bank.
“What is being constructed inside our borders with Yemen is a sort of screen ... which aims to prevent infiltration and smuggling,” Anqawi told Asharq Al-Awsat, a sister publication of Arab News. “It does not resemble a wall in any way.”
Earlier yesterday, the two countries agreed to join forces to fight malaria in border areas. Joint field teams are due to begin spraying houses with insecticides and offer treatment to infected people on Feb. 22, according to a cooperation minute signed in Sanaa by the head of the Yemeni Anti-Malaria Program, Dr. Jamal Ghailan, and Dr. Sulaiman Al-Saghir from the Saudi Health Ministry.
