Al-Assad to visit Yemen in the mid of September

A Yemeni source said on Thursday that the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will hold an official visit to Yemen in the mid of September.

The Yemeni paper "September 26," mouthpiece of the Yemeni armed forces said in its weekly issue released on Thursday that this visit comes at the invitation of the Yemeni President Ali Abullah Saleh and that talks between the two Presidents will deal with several current issues with the aim to strengthen bilateral relations, the developments in the Middle East and conditions in the Palestinian territories.

The visit of President al-Assad to Sanaa is his first since he assumed power in Syria in succession of his father the late Syrian President Hafez al-Assad in 1999.

By the end of July this year, the Syrian- Yemeni higher joint committee held a meeting in Damascus chaired by the prime ministers in the two countries during which several agreements and cooperation protocols were signed, covering several area.