Sanaa-Washington Anti-Terrorism Agreement [Archives:2000/48/Front Page]

Yemens parliament Tuesday approved an international agreement on fighting terrorism carried out through blasting foreign targets. Political observers described the Yemeni move as a gesture of bona fide towards Washington.
The agreement, signed by the two countries, stipulates Yemens government commitment to extradite any persons accused of carrying out terrorist acts on its territories against foreign targets to be prosecuted in the concerned country.
The agreement was faced with strong opposition at the parliament but chairman of the meeting Yahya Al-Raie announced the parliaments approval of it. MP Yahya Mansour Abuisba assailed the agreement saying it would at this stage serve only Israel and its ally America. Independent deputies confirmed to the Yemen Times that the agreement was not supported by majority of parliament members though chairman of the session had as usual declared that it had been approved by the majority. In response to warnings by parliament members against dangers of the agreement the parliament said the foreign minister asserted that the agreement did not include political refugees but only those involved in terrorist acts. In a telephone conversation with the YT, some parliamentarians deemed the agreement as giving opportunity to handing over to Washington those accused of being involved in Cole blast incident.
Security authorities on Wednesday released a group of those suspects in Cole incident at a time activity of American investigation teams got stepped up following the Yemeni investigators willingness to provide them with findings of investigations they had so far conducted with regard to the incident.
More than 120 MPs representing Islah, Nasserite parties, the ruling party in addition to independent members had sent a memorandum to the parliament chairmanship stressing their opposition to the agreement, parliamentary sources mentioned.
Official sources had two weeks ago announced that the two countries governments were studying possibility of allowing the U.S. investigators to interrogate Yemeni citizens.

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