Yemeni President prevents Israeli tourism, visits Saudi Arabia to settle border disputes
Yemen, Politics, 5/26/2000

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said he will in June visit Saudi Arabia to continue talks aiming at settling the border disputes between Sanaa and al-Riyadh. He stressed his country will never receive Israeli tourists.

In a statement to the Qatari al-Jazira satellite station on Thursday, he said " I have met with the Saudi crown prince in Sanaa ( on the sidelines of the celebrations of the 10th anniversary for the reunification of the two parts of Yemen) and we had agreed to visit Jeddah with the last three weeks on June." President Saleh ruled out that Sanaa will submit the border disputes with Saudi Arabia to the International court for Justice.

Since 1995, al-Riyadh and Sanaa are discussing their joint borders demarcation. Borders which are 2500 Km s length.

The Yemeni President made it clear that his talks in Saudi Arabia will deal with demarcating the two controversial border points " al-Ma'waj head on the Red Sea and al-Thaar mountain."

In April the Saudi minister of the Interior prince Nayef Bin Abdul Aziz said that al-Riyadh and Sanaa are heading towards final settlement of their border disputes.

President Saleh stressed Sanaa " will not accept Israeli tourism what so ever the result," adding that those Israelis whose visits were accepted in the past were not tourists but visitors " noting that just one group of " Israeli tourists" which visited Yemen and was not welcomed by any Yemeni official.

On Tuesday an official at the tourism sector in Sanaa, refused to be identified said " Israeli tourists will arrive in Yemen within the two coming weeks."

Sanaa airport authorities said that three groups of Israeli tourists of Yemeni origin visited Yemen in March and April in temporary travel documents, they had delivered from the Yemeni mission at the UN.

Meantime, the Yemeni foreign minister Abdul Qader Bajmal stressed in a press conference he held in Sanaa that the visit of Israeli tourists to Yemen does not mean " normalization" with the Israel. He explained " there should be no mixing of papers as some believe that just " hosting of Israelis in Yemen" constitute a sort of normalization, which is not true."

Still, there are 300 Jews live in Yemen. The main Yemeni Jews migration to Israel took place between June 1949 and June 1950 when 43,000 Jews were taken in " air bridge" to Israel from Aden.

Previous Stories:
  Yemen celebrates tenth unity anniversary facing internal, external challenges   (5/22/2000)
  Saudi- Yemeni border demarcation   (5/12/2000)
  Yemeni Fatwa bans normalization with Israel   (5/9/2000)
  Al-Ahmar: The Israelis' visits to Yemen are   (4/18/2000)

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