Saleh to return to Yemen as pressure mounts to quit

SANAA — Protesters demanded a swift transfer of power from Ali Abdullah Saleh on Monday as his deputy said the veteran Yemeni president would return within days after surgery in Riyadh for blast injuries.EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton urged Saleh to act "in the best interest of his people" while the White House called for an "immediate transition.""His excellency is making a strong recovery and will return home in the coming days," Vice President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi said at a meeting of the ruling General People's Congress, quoted by the official Saba news agency.In Sanaa, a fragile truce held despite a deadly sniper attack on loyalists of a powerful tribal chief blamed for Friday's bomb attack which wounded Saleh as he prayed inside a mosque in his compound.As Saleh, 69, recuperated in a Riyadh military hospital, a committee of youth activists that has been a key player behind the four-month uprising against his nearly 33 years of iron-fisted rule called for a quick transfer of power.The committee urged "all national and political forces to begin by forming an interim presidential council."It also called for the formation of a "government of technocrats" to lead the transition.Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Yemen's capital on Sunday to cheer what they saw as the end of Saleh's regime.Impoverished Yemen's wealthy Gulf neighbours, who have been trying to broker a peaceful transition for months, said their proposal for Saleh to hand over power in return for the promise of immunity from prosecution remained the "most suitable solution.""The council member-states could activate (the proposal) and follow up on its implementation, if Yemen parties agree on it," said Gulf Cooperation Council chief Abdullatif al-Zayani, whose mediation efforts since April have repeatedly run into objections from Saleh.The EU foreign policy chief recalled that the Yemeni president had almost signed the Gulf proposals on three occasions, and said: "He knows perfectly well what he needs to do for his p

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