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emen's Gulf neighbors pledged on Tuesday to renew efforts to avert civil war on their doorstep over the fate of wounded President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who is clinging to power after months of protests against his rule.
Gulf states have tried repeatedly and in vain to broker an exit for Saleh, forced to seek treatment in Saudi Arabia for injuries suffered in an attack on his palace earlier this month.
The failure of the most recent bid in May triggered two weeks of fighting that reduced parts of the capital to ruins and fanned Western and regional fears of Yemen slipping into chaos and giving al Qaeda a stronghold alongside oil shipping routes.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), a bloc of monarchies neighboring Yemen, has seen Saleh back out of deals it struck to ease him from office three times. Its members pledged on Tuesday to continue efforts to resolve Yemen's political crisis.
"We have exerted together a major effort to ... restore the situation in Yemen and for sure our efforts will continue in that matter," Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahayan, the United Arab Emirates foreign minister, said at a GCC meeting in Jeddah.
Sheikh Sadeq al-Ahmar, a leader of Yemen's powerful Hashed tribal confederation, parts of which have turned against Saleh, said Vice-President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, the acting leader, must allow a transitional government to take shape.
"Constitutionally...he must bear his responsibilities and go forward with them until the transitional period," he told the Arab satellite network Al Jazeera.
A bomb killed a military officer loyal to Saleh in Burayqa near the southern port of Aden, an official said on Tuesday.
The explosion tore through the car of Colonel Muti'a al-Sayani, a close relative of a provincial governor who is among Saleh's supporters.
Aden is flooded with refugees fleeing fighting between Yemen's military and Islamist militants who have seized the capital of a neighboring province -- one of the multiple conflicts that Yemen's neighbors fear could shatter the Arabian Peninsula country and embolden the country's al Qaeda wing.
A U.S.- and European-brokered effort to strike a transition agreement between Saleh's deputy and opposition parties who demand the president surrender all claims to power immediately, collapsed after the deputy refused to discuss Saleh's fate.
Gulf states have tried repeatedly and in vain to broker an exit for Saleh, forced to seek treatment in Saudi Arabia for injuries suffered in an attack on his palace earlier this month.
The failure of the most recent bid in May triggered two weeks of fighting that reduced parts of the capital to ruins and fanned Western and regional fears of Yemen slipping into chaos and giving al Qaeda a stronghold alongside oil shipping routes.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), a bloc of monarchies neighboring Yemen, has seen Saleh back out of deals it struck to ease him from office three times. Its members pledged on Tuesday to continue efforts to resolve Yemen's political crisis.
"We have exerted together a major effort to ... restore the situation in Yemen and for sure our efforts will continue in that matter," Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahayan, the United Arab Emirates foreign minister, said at a GCC meeting in Jeddah.
Sheikh Sadeq al-Ahmar, a leader of Yemen's powerful Hashed tribal confederation, parts of which have turned against Saleh, said Vice-President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, the acting leader, must allow a transitional government to take shape.
"Constitutionally...he must bear his responsibilities and go forward with them until the transitional period," he told the Arab satellite network Al Jazeera.
A bomb killed a military officer loyal to Saleh in Burayqa near the southern port of Aden, an official said on Tuesday.
The explosion tore through the car of Colonel Muti'a al-Sayani, a close relative of a provincial governor who is among Saleh's supporters.
Aden is flooded with refugees fleeing fighting between Yemen's military and Islamist militants who have seized the capital of a neighboring province -- one of the multiple conflicts that Yemen's neighbors fear could shatter the Arabian Peninsula country and embolden the country's al Qaeda wing.
A U.S.- and European-brokered effort to strike a transition agreement between Saleh's deputy and opposition parties who demand the president surrender all claims to power immediately, collapsed after the deputy refused to discuss Saleh's fate.
