The head of the opposition's delegation who expected to sign the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) deal urged pro-democracy protesters on Tuesday to press on until their demand of President Ali Abdullah Saleh's ouster is met, stating the opposition had painted the regime into a corner when it accepted the GCC deal.
Mohammed Basendouh, a leading opposition figure, visited on Tuesday the protesters at their campsite in Sanaa to express his support.
"The Gulf initiative meets the grassroots will of the departure of the regime that has become stuck in a tight corner following its rejection of the deal. This has proved to the mediators that the regime is not serious in fulfilling commitments," he said. "The role of the opposition is supplementary to your struggle in the camping avenues and it adopts your goal of overthrowing the regime."
Meanwhile, two associates of Yemen's president say he has asked a mediator from the Gulf countries seeking to resolve the country's crisis to indefinitely delay his visit.
The decision is the latest blow to attempts to resolve weeks of anti-government unrest in this impoverished Arab country.
The two senior officials said Tuesday that Saleh sent a formal letter to Abdullatif Bin Rashid Al-Zayani, general-secretary of the Gulf Cooperation Council, requesting the delay.
The letter was sent Monday, just as Al-Zayani was expecting to meet Saleh to ask him to resign as part of the GCC's initiative to resolve the crisis, they said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.
A senior ruling party official said that Saleh would only resign if the opposition first ended the sit-ins, defection of the army regiments, road blockades, and stopped the rebellious activities of the southern secessionists and rebels in Saada.
Abdullah Ahmed Ghanem said, "We know very well that the opposition's aim from the Gulf deal is the resignation of the president and this will not happen until the second article of the deal is met which entails the end of political and security tension."
