Yemen reopens door to world

Press, 29 January 1986, Page 10

Yemen reopens door to world

NZPA-Reuter Manama, Bahrain

Links between South Yemen and the world are gradually being restored after 12 days of fierce fighting between rival Marxist factions that killed up to 13,000 people and devastated the capital.

A senior Communications Ministry official said the national airline, alYemda had resumed overseas services with a flight to Damascus and that several planes were due to land today at Aden airport Officials said international telephone links were back to normal and that internal flights would be resumed within two days. The f-new leader of

South Yemen, Haider Abubaker Attas, appealed yesterday for international aid to rebuild the capital, Aden. Damage from the fighting is estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars.

In Geneva the International Committee of the Red Cross said it had been given permission to send in a nine-member team to aid victims of the fighting. Mr Attas, appointed interim head of State on Friday, also pledged to pursue a foreign policy based on non-interference in other countries’ affairs and to boost ties with the Soviet Union, Ethiopia, and other States in the Arabian Peninsula. The French Ambassador to South

was among 6000 foreigners taken from Aden during the fighting, said in Paris yesterday that the Soviet Union had been taken by surprise by the feud between leaders of its ally. The Ambassador, Mr Pierre Aubert, said that Moscow had fully supported the policies of the ousted President, All Nasser Muhammad, and that its ties with the new leadership remained unclear.

Diplomatic sources in the region said South Yemeni envoys were now expected to tour Arab countries to explain the new leadership’s policies.

But voices were still being raised to challenge its authority. A radio controlled by supporters of Mr Nasser Muhammad

said changes in South Yemen were unconstitutional.

This assertion was made in a statement by 14 members of the central committee of the ruling Socialist Party who were dismissed by the new leaders, the radio said.

The committee members denied there had been a plot by the Nasser Muhammad faction to liquidate politburo members, as alleged by the new leaders, and said that South Yemen’s Supreme People’s Council was the only body competent to dismiss them.

Agence France-Presse quoted an American State Department official as saying the United States would continue to deny recognition to South

Yemen and voiced concern at Soviet “evident support” for hardliners who appear to have taken over in Aden.

“We have no diplomatic relations with South Yemen ... we have no intention of recognising or dealing with the rebels who have apparently taken control of Aden,” said a State Department spokesman, Bernard Kalb.

“We are concerned that the Soviet Union, by its increasingly evident support of the rebels, appears to be taking sides on behalf of one faction in South Yemen’s still-unre-solved internal political struggle,” he added.

The United States has had no relations with South Yemen since a proSoviet Government came to power there in