SANAA: Yemen has opened talks for the release of five German hostages and a Briton who have been located in Saada, scene of clashes with rebels, Foreign Minister Abu Bakr Al-Kurbi said on Tuesday.
“Their whereabouts have been determined. They are in Saada,” northern Yemen, where the army backed by the air force has been locked in clashes with rebels, Kurbi told a press conference.
“Negotiations are ongoing to secure their release,” said Kurbi, declining to give details.
Kurbi’s statement came a day after German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle visited Sanaa where he held talks on the hostages with Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Westerwelle told reporters that the president had told him “he had information a little than two hours ago” that the authorities knew where the German hostages were being held.
The family of five Germans, including three children, and the Briton were abducted in northern Yemen last June, along with two German Bible students and a South Korean - all women - who were shot dead soon afterwards.
Westerwelle said the German Embassy was doing everything it could to bring the “intolerable situation” of the hostages “to a good end.” A Yemeni official said last week Sanaa had information that the six hostages were still alive and that there appeared to be an Al-Qaeda link to their abduction.
“The three possible places they could be in are (the provinces of) Maarib, Al-Jouf and Saada,” said the deputy premier for defense and security affairs, Rashad Al-Aleemi.
“There is coordination between the rebels and the Al-Qaeda in this matter.” Sanaa has repeatedly pointed the finger of blame at rebels for the kidnappings, a charge they deny saying the government was behind the abduction to use as an excuse to attack the rebels.
The Yemeni Army has been waging an all-out offensive against the rebels based in the Saada province and its surroundings since August, in a bid to end their five-year rebellion.
Yemeni forces killed 20 rebels in a military operation to rid a northern town of rebel hideouts, and the insurgents said their civilian population was the target of a deliberate campaign of deadly violence.
Security forces mounted house-to-house sweeps in the old city of Saada, where rebels had been taking refuge in homes, Yemen’s Interior Ministry said on its website. Some 25 were arrested, it said.
It did not say if there were any civilian casualties.
Yemen’s Foreign Minister Abu Bakr Al-Qirbi said the US and its allies helping Yemen fight Al-Qaeda should not pressure it to carry out reforms or resolve other internal conflicts.
American officials have expressed concerns that Yemen’s costly and bloody war against the rebels - as well as its efforts to stamp out a secession movement in the south - could divert resources and attention away from the fight against Al-Qaeda’s offshoot here.
In the past, Washington has cut economic aid to Yemen because of concerns over rampant corruption in the country.
The commander of the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus, said on Monday he expects counterterrorism aid to double this year to around $150 million, compared to none in 2008.
Al-Qirbi told reporters that an upcoming international conference on Yemen’s fight against Al-Qaeda, to be held in London on Jan. 27, should address the government’s war with the rebels or try to push political or human rights reforms.
The conference, to be attended by the United States and European countries, should focus on promises of counterterrorism help as well as economic aid for Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab world, Al-Qirbi said.
“If we divert from these into other political issues that are within the domain of the Yemeni government, we will compromise the objectives of this conference,” Al-Qirbi told reporters in Sana.
