SANAA, 10 November 2006 — Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh will visit Saudi Arabia next week for talks with Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah on security and economic cooperation, official sources said yesterday.
Saleh would ask the Kingdom to support Sanaa at a donors’ conference to be held in London on Nov. 15 and 16 under the sponsorship of the GCC and the World Bank, the sources said.
They said security cooperation will also figure at Saleh’s talks with the Saudi leadership. Al-Qaeda network has issued threats to carry out terror attacks in Yemen.
An Al-Qaeda offshoot on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the Sept. 15 suicide attacks on two oil facilities in Yemen and threatened to launch new attacks against US targets in the country.
Four attackers and one security guard died when suicide bombers blew up four trucks inside two oil facilities in eastern Yemen on Sept. 15.
Yemen and Saudi Arabia have been closely cooperating in the fight against terrorism since the two countries were targeted by terrorists in recent years.
Saudi Arabia was among the GCC member states that pledged to help Yemen boost its economy at a two-day meeting of GCC ministers in Sanaa recently.
Yemeni Prime Minister Abdul Qader Ba-Jammal had told the meeting his country needed more than $48 billion to upgrade the country’s infrastructure, overcome budget deficit and inflation and bring the country’s economy on a par with the economies of other GCC states.
He said the plan would be put forward at the London donor conference, which will be attended by the representatives of governments and lending agencies from the European Union, the United States and Japan. President Saleh is expected to address the conference.
