Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh (front, L) listens to his son, Brigadier Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh, who commands the Republican Guards Forces, during a visit to a Republican Guards brigade near Sanaa November 19, 2011.(Photo: Reuters)
A United Nations Security Council meeting on Yemen scheduled for Monday has been postponed for a week.
"The Security Council meeting was postponed to 28 November at the request of the protagonists" of the Yemeni crisis, UN envoy Jamal Benomar told AFP on Sunday, who has been in Sanaa since last week for talks on ending ten months of political deadlock and bloodshed.
The 15-member council unanimously passed Resolution 2014 on 21 October condemning the government crackdown on the mass anti-government protest movement that has swept the country.
It also called on embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh to sign a Gulf Cooperation Council plan which calls for an end to his 33-year-rule in return for immunity from prosecution. Saleh has so far refused to sign the agreement despite violence that has seen hundreds killed and thousands wounded.
Benomar returned to Sanaa on November ten for yet another attempt to persuade Saleh and his opponents to end the crisis and to get him to sign the Gulf transition plan that calls on him to hand power over to his deputy, Vice President Abdrabuh Mansour Hadi.
Benomar is expected to submit a report to the UN Security Council on his return to New York.
The parliamentary Common Forum opposition is leading the political front of the protest, which is also backed by dissident General Ali Mohsen Al-Ahmar and powerful tribes.
Last week, diplomats said the Security Council would meet Monday to discuss Saleh's refusal to step down, as well as the increased violence that the international community fears will escalate into full-scale civil war.
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