An army soldier tries to prevent an anti-government protester from crossing a barricade blocking a demonstration demanding the ouster of Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh, in the southern city of Taiz April 7, 2011. A Gulf Arab plan for Yemen’s president to step down will guarantee the veteran leader and his family immunity from prosecution, an opposition source said on Thursday, but youth activists said that should be rejected. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

WASHINGTON (IPS) — United States officials reaffirmed their
support for a peaceful transition of power in Yemen, but stopped short of
publicly calling for President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s immediate abdication as
clashes between protesters and Yemeni security forces, which began in late
January, violently escalate.

“The United States strongly supports the Yemeni people
in their quest for greater opportunity and their pursuit of political and
economic reform that will fulfill their aspirations,” White House
spokesman Jay Carney said in a press release on Tuesday. “President Saleh
needs to resolve the political impasse with the opposition so that meaningful
political change can take place in the near term in an orderly and peaceful
manner.”

While a recent story published by the New York Times
indicated that President Barack Obama had decided to support the removal of
President Saleh in an abrupt shift in his Yemen policy, U.S. State Department
spokesman Mark Toner stated that the U.S. position regarding Yemen has been
consistent in calling for a peaceful negotiation process between Saleh and
opposition groups.

“[W]e’ve been calling for an end to the violence and
the government of Yemen to address the concerns of its people in a timely
fashion for some time,” Toner said Monday.

The European Union (EU) has taken a decidedly different
tone. In response to reports that at least 15 protesters had been killed Monday
in the western cities of Ta’izz and al- Hudaydah, Catherine Ashton, the high
representative of foreign affairs for the EU, called for an immediate change.

“I reiterate my call for an orderly political transition
to begin without delay in order to resolve the current crisis and pave the way
to reforms,” Ashton said in a press release on Tuesday.

In a country plagued with what has proven to be violent
political and tribal rivalries, a secessionist movement in the south, an
ongoing war between government forces and Shi’a Houthi rebels in the north, and
an active al Qaeda presence in a number of provinces, demand for regime change
is just the most recent challenge of Saleh’s reign.

Analysts point out that in a post-Saleh Yemen, or even a
post-Arab Spring Yemen — in which Saleh were able to maintain a weakened hold
on power — U.S.-Yemen relations will continue to revolve around U.S. national
security interests and the fight against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
(AQAP) led by Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen.

After Umar Farouk Abdulmatullab, who trained at an AQAP camp
in Yemen, allegedly attempted to blow up an airliner heading to Detroit in
December 2009 and a spate of attacks on Yemeni government officials that have
been attributed to AQAP, the terrorist organization has proved surprisingly
resilient given the near doubling of U.S. aid for counterterrorism operations
in Yemen over the past two years and joint U.S.-Yemeni efforts to eradicate
extremism in the country.

While counterterrorism issues are certainly a top priority
of U.S. officials, and countrywide violence clearly has a negative impact on
all Yemeni civilians — particularly the families of Yemeni troops fighting and
dying for the cause against AQAP — political opposition groups have a range of
other problems to address, not least of which is the peaceable removal of
President Saleh.

As the poorest Arab country, Yemen faces a substantial
current accounts deficit, swelling unemployment, a severely limited water
supply and dwindling oil production, which accounts for 70% of government
revenues.

“For Yemenis on the whole, al Qaeda is not a problem.
Most Yemenis think that al Qaeda is a creation of the Saleh regime in order to
gain U.S. backing,” Towson University Professor Charles Schmitz, a Yemen
expert, told IPS, “If the U.S. plays a positive role in resolving the
issues of the economy and the state, then Yemenis might be more willing to
support American military initiatives against al Qaeda.”

The Joint Meetings Parties (JMP), an umbrella organization
for the major opposition groups, including the Yemeni Congregation for Reform
(al-Islah) and the Yemeni Socialist Party, have — in direct negotiations with
Saleh — urged the president to transfer power before his term ends in 2013, a
rebuff to Saleh’s Feb. 2 pledge that neither he nor his son would run for
office at the conclusion of his term.

While the JMP presented a list of demands to the president
on Mar. 23, the negotiations between all opposition parties and Saleh, which
are being mediated by the Gulf Cooperation Council, have been marked by
divergent interests and disagreement on how to achieve one unifying goal:
Saleh’s departure.

The youth movement, which has been a driving force in the
street demonstrations that erupted on Jan. 27, has demanded Saleh’s immediate
abdication, but other parties seem to be taking a gradualist approach.

Some opposition leaders have taken reports about the West’s
change of heart in supporting the removal of President Saleh seriously and
remain confident that his departure is within reach. Sheikh Mohammed Abu
Lahoun, the former head of the Foreign Relations Department of parliament’s
ruling General People’s Congress, provided an optimistic forecast for Yemen in a
conference Tuesday sponsored by the United States Institute of Peace.

“We need to work out a good exit strategy [for Saleh],
and I think the U.S. position, and with the Europeans today, is quite
intelligent and should be encouraging to the president to take that step and
give us an exit strategy and this is encouraging the opposition,” he said.

While the official U.S. position remains determined to see
the negotiations through, some experts argue Saleh’s quick departure is a
foregone conclusion.

“Saleh was a very good friend to the U.S. military and
it took some time for the security folks to come around to the realization that
Saleh was losing control,” Schmitz said, ” [T]here is a recognition
that Saleh has lost support and some sort of new government has to come to
power.”