Authorities dismiss rumors about closure of Yemeni-Saudi border:Yemen-Saudi border not closed [Archives:2003/660/Local News]

Sanaa, August 15 – Yemeni officials dismissed on Thursday reports that Yemen and Saudi Arabia have closed their borders and called those reports “untrue and baseless”.
“The Yemeni Saudi borders are open, and will remain always a bridge for love and fruitful cooperation between the two brotherly countries, in a way that serves the common goals and interests,” an official said.
This comes as a Saudi force of more than 200 security agents used tear gas and explosives on Friday to blast into a two-storey building where the Saudi and Bangladeshi suspects were hiding in Karbos village, near the Yemeni border in Jazan province.
The security forces were reported to have found 93 bazooka rockets, more than 50 hand grenades, a number of machine guns, highly explosive chemicals, detonators and three security uniforms.
Saudi Arabia has often stated that there are enormous amounts of weapons smuggled from Yemen to Saudi Arabia.
Saudi sources had confirmed in June that the arms confiscated last year along the Kingdom's porous 1,800-km border totaled up to 263 firearms, 1.2 million rounds of ammunition, 46,700 sticks of dynamite and a large number of detonators.
Great hopes were centered on the demarcation agreement that came after the two countries signed an international border treaty on June 2000, to end a 66-year-old border dispute and to limit smuggling of weapons, yet so far, solid results are not evident.
Demarcation works are expected to be over by the end of 2005.
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