YEMEN’S EMBATTLED PRESIDENT Ali Abdullah Saleh has agreed a deal with Gulf Arab mediators to step down within 30 days, and hand power to his deputy.

In exchange, he will be given immunity from prosecution, a major about-face for the autocratic leader who has ruled for 32 years.

Under the latest draft, Yemen’s parliament would grant Saleh legal protection from prosecution. The president would submit his resignation to lawmakers within 30 days and hand power to his vice president, who would call for new presidential elections.

The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes powerful Saudi Arabia, had been seeking to broker an end to the crisis in the fragile nation on the southern edge of the Arabian peninsula.

Opposition spokesman Mohammed Kahtan described the Gulf council’s initiative as “positive” and said the leaders of the opposition parties have all agreed on it.

Kahtan, however, listed several reservations. He said the opposition rejects the draft proposal’s call for the formation of a national unity government within seven days of the signing of a deal and wants to see Saleh step down first.

“We would have to swear an oath to Saleh, who has already lost his legitimacy,” he explained, adding that the possible parliamentary veto of his resignation also cast doubts over the strength of the deal.

A coalition of seven opposition parties said they also accepted the deal but with reservations. Even if the differences are overcome, those parties do not speak for all of the hundreds of thousands of protesters seeking Saleh’s ousting, and signs were already emerging that a deal on those terms would not end confrontations in the streets.

A day earlier, protesters staged the largest of two months of demonstrations, filling a five-lane boulevard across the capital with a sea of hundreds of thousands of people.

US State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Washington welcomed the proposal for ending the crisis and called for immediate dialogue by all sides on a transfer of power.

“We will not speculate about the choices the Yemeni people will make or the results of their political dialogue,” he said. “It is ultimately for the people of Yemen to decide how their country is governed.”

Later, the White House in a statement urged all parties in Yemen “to move swiftly to implement” a deal transferring power.

The opposition movement, fed up with poverty and corruption under Saleh, took inspiration from the toppling of leaders in Tunisia and Egypt and has grown in numbers since the first protests in early February.

AP