Peace Returns To Yemen After Pact

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30839, 26 August 1965, Page 13

Peace Returns To Yemen After Pact

<N.Z.P..t.-Reuter—Copt/right I CAIRO, August 25. Peace is returning to the Yemen today after three years of bitter fighting in barren mountains.

To Royalist forces in high caves and Republican troops in the plains below went word that their respective champions. King Feisal of Saudi Arabia and President Nasser of Egypt, had signed an agreement for an immediate cease-fire. Three days of talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, brought agreement yesterday to end the civil war which

i began when Abdulah al Sallal overthrew Imam (King) Mohammed al Badr and became President. Under the agreement, Saudi Arabia agrees to halt at once its military help to the Royalists, while Egypt undertakes to withdraw her troops—reported to number 50,000 —who have been backing the Republicans. The Egyptian withdrawal will start on November 23 and last 10 months. On the same day, a representative conference of Yemenis will meet at Haradh in the Yemen to arrange a

plebiscite in which the people must choose what kind of government they want. The plebiscite must be held within a year of the conference, which will also decide how the country shall be governed in the meantime. The agreement said that if necessary Saudi Arabia and Egypt would co-operate in enforcing the plan to end the war. A joint commission would supervise the ceasefire and set up frontier checks to stop military aid entering the Yemen. After signing the agreement. President Nasser flew back to Cairo. King Feisal is expected to visit Cairo next month, it is reported. Syria’s first reaction to the agreement was critical. Damascus Radio said last night it endangered the Republican regime in the Yemen and “left it open for bargaining.”

The agreement also upheld “the U.A.R. and Saudi Arabian patronage over the Yemen,” Damascus Radio said.

But in Amman, Jordan's Prime Minister, Mr Wasfi alTell, hailed the agreement as a blessed step.