SANAA - Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has refused to sign an agreement Sunday to resign, the third time such an agreement fell through at the last minute, despite the pressures exerted by the Arab Gulf and Western mediators.
Saleh said al-Qaeda activists could fill a policy and empty security if it is forced out and, in a speech televised Sunday, criticized the opposition of deal collapse.
He said "if (Yemen) is drowned in a civil war, they will be responsible and bloodshed".
The agreement would give Saleh immunity against prosecution, ensuring a dignified exit after 33 years in power. If he had signed, it would become the third long-entrenched Arab leader ousted by popular protests since January.
The United States and Saudi Arabia, the two targets of attacks foiled by based on the regional Yemen wing al-Qaeda, are eager to put an end to the Yemeni deadlock and avoid a spread of lawlessness that would give more space to operate the global activist network.
"Saleh is not seriously out of power." And this is part of its strategy of staying cool, "Analyst based security to Dubai Theodore Karasik said, adding that the sovereign in 69 years was is more regarded as a trusted partner."
"It might be in a position of cling, but outside pressure will be so intense, that it might be its days are numbered," he has said.
The block of Council of cooperation of the Gulf (GCC) of neighboring oil-rich of Yemen and the Western powers exerted intense diplomatic efforts to obtain agreement and put an end to the violence in which more than 170 Yemeni demonstrators were killed.
TRAPPED AMBASSADORS
The GCC called for "a swift signature by President Ali Abdullah Saleh and a peaceful transition of power".
The US President Barack Obama said Thursday that Saleh had to "give its commitment to transfer power. European diplomats have also turned to the two parties to agree on an agreement.
But, in a move likely to infuriate the Gulf and Western countries, armed men loyal to Saleh surround of the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates United Sunday, trapping in the ambassadors of Gulf and Western working to resolve the crisis and prevent to apply to the Presidential Palace to see Saleh.
The United Arab Emirates United urged the Yemeni authorities to secure its Embassy, and diplomats were later reported to have left by helicopter.
Coalition of the opposition of the Yemen, including Islamists and leftists, had already signed the agreement on the Saturday after indications of mediators of the Gulf that Saleh would sign on Sunday.
But diplomats said that Saleh had asked the opposition to go to the Presidential Palace to sign the agreement in his presence again. The opposition said it had already signed and would not go.
The opposition is under pressure to avoid a compromise more young demonstrators, including students and the tribes, who are seeking the immediate release of the Saleh and promised to continue daily meetings until Saleh closes.
"The opposition did not want to go to the Palace because she knows that the leaders of the revolution in Sana'a will be very angry," Hakim al-Masmari, editor in Chief of the Yemen position, told Al Jazeera.
"It will be Saleh look victorious, as a person who leaves power with honour and dignity, not a person who has killed hundreds of Yemenis in the months of the revolution of the Yemen," Al Jazeera quoted Masmari said on its Web site.
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