Yemen reiterates denial of Maariv claims of initiating dialogue with Israel

The Yemeni Foreign Ministry has reiterated its denial of claims promoted recently by the Israeli paper Maariv on the desire of Yemen to establish a dialogue with Israel.

The Gulf News Agency quoted the Yemeni Foreign Ministry's secretary, Ghaleb Ali Jamil, as saying in a statement to the Yemeni daily al-Thawra on Wednesday that such claims and rumors are fabricated and disseminated by certain papers for their own reasons and do not comply with the declared Yemeni stand towards the peace process in the region, restoring Arab rights to their owners and ending the Israeli occupation of Arab territories in the Golan, Palestine and south Lebanon.

Jamil stressed that Yemen's unswerving position is to stand beside the Palestinian people in their struggle for self-determination and the establishment of their own independent state on their native soil of Palestine with Jerusalem as a capital.

The Yemeni official reiterated his country's backing for the Arab negotiator in the peace process in order to restore the full rights of the Arab people on the grounds of land-for-peace and UN resolutions. He indicated Israeli attempts to escape the implementation of UN Security Council resolutions in this respect.