Southern Yemen skeptical of Cairo talks

Southern Yemen skeptical of Cairo talks

ADEN (Reuter): Breakaway southern Yemen, its beleaguered capital Aden battered by heavy shelling, accused its northern foes yesterday of planning to use UN-sponsored talks in Cairo as a cover for fresh attempts to take the city.

Abdel-Rahman Ali al-Jifri, vice-president of the secessionist state declared on May 21, told Reuters a cease-fire in the civil war had to be a pre-condition for any talks.

"There must be a cease-fire...what are we going to talk about when we are being attacked?" he asked.

UN peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi held talks in Cairo yesterday with southern officials to try to narrow differences and secure agreement on ways of halting the war, which began on May 4 after four-years of uneasy union between the traditionalist north and the formerly Marxist and more secular south.

The government in Sanaa said a northern delegation was traveling to Cairo for talks on how to enforce a cease-fire.

But its planning minister, Abdul-Karim al-Iryani, told Reuters the talks would fail if they sought to treat the south as a separate state. "We are talking within the framework of the Republic of Yemen. If they (the southerners) are coming to talk on the concept of two republics, the talks will fail," he said.

Five truce attempts have failed during the war. Proposals for foreign monitoring have been snagged over the central issue of whether Yemen is one state or two.

But Brahimi said in Cairo he had dropped plans to leave the region after Sanaa decided to send a delegation. "I'll be staying. I'll stay as long as there is hope of doing something, maybe two or three days".

Jifri, meanwhile, expressed skepticism about Sanaa's "last minute" decision to send a team to Cairo.

"They (northerners) are wasting everyone's time and just playing for time while they have no intention of a cease-fire.

They are just trying to delay Brahimi's departure to brief the UN Security Council and the Secretary-General on his findings," he said.

"We can attend the first meeting, tell Brahimi that there is no cease-fire on the ground and Aden is still under attack, then ask him to go to New York to brief the UN," he added.

Southern officials said the proposed Cairo talks would not stop them from actively seeking an emergency Security Council session to discuss the plight of some 400,000 Aden residents after more than 80 civilians were killed in the past three days in heavy northern shelling of the port city.

A southern official said Sanaa has "misled the world" for the past 10 days with statements that it accepted a cease-fire and would abide by UN resolution 924 demanding a truce while continuing to launch missile and rocket attacks on Aden.

Officials and residents said Aden was still under attack from the east, north and northwest yesterday morning after northern forces fired three missiles at the city overnight, killing at least one person and wounding nine others.

"Listen, Sanaa has no intention for peace...Why does it send fresh Republican Guard troops and tanks to positions around Aden if it plans to reach a cease-fire in Cairo," one official said.

Differences over the Cairo talks include the size of each delegation, who can attend and if the talks are between the political parties that made up the coalition government of united Yemen or between two sovereign states.

No country has recognized the breakaway south but several key Arab states appear to support the southern demand for a cease- fire before convening the talks.