Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 2003, page 82

Diplomatic Doings

Dr. Al-Iryani Examines Yemen’s Emerging Democracy

Yemen’s Ambassador to the United States Abdulwahab Abdallah Al-Hajjri hosted a dinner Nov. 25 at his elegant residence for Dr. Abd Al-Karim Al-Iryani, a political adviser to Yemen’s president. After dinner, Dr. Al-Iryani, a former prime minister, spoke briefly about Yemen’s emerging democracy to the ambassadors and friends of Middle East states assembled in his honor.

Dr. Al-Iryani expressed the hope that Yemen will continue emerging until it is a full-fledged democratic country. His country is open, listening and responding to the democratic dreams of the Yemeni people, he said, and working to register voters, especially women. Nearly 70 percent of women have already registered to vote, he noted, and even illiterate Yemenis are encouraged to exercise their democratic rights and will be accommodated. Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle East, is trying the democratic experiment, and will hold elections in April 2003, Dr. Al-Iryani declared.

As for relations between Yemen and the United States, Dr. Al-Iryani said there has been a lot of bad news since the attack on the USS Cole. While Yemen is cooperating with the U.S. in its fight against terrorism, he noted, the recent use of a U.S. Predator drone to target and kill terrorists produced negative international headlines for both countries.

Yemen also received unwanted notoriety when American tourist Dr. Mary Quin was kidnapped and rescued in January 1999. She recently requested a visa to return to Yemen for a kind of pilgrimage, Dr. Al-Iryani said, to put flowers and photos and shed some tears at the scene of her ordeal. When he asked her why on earth she wanted to return, she replied that she knew “Yemenis aren’t terrorists; it’s not in their nature.”

The Yemeni diplomat told the story to illustrate the fact that his people only want to live in peace. His government, he said, is fully cooperating with the United States to try to prevent any more attacks on ships in its harbors. After all, he pointed out, after the attacks on the Cole and on the French oil tanker Limburg Oct. 6, 2002, the livelihoods of 2,000 Yemeni fishermen were destroyed, and Yemenis were victims of the environmental pollution caused by the latter attack.

As for those who claim Osama bin Laden is hiding out in Yemen, Dr. Al-Iryani scoffed at the thought. Everyone knows all the gossip and news immediately in Yemen, he explained. If Bin Laden arrived in Sana’a one morning, he asserted, everyone in every coffee shop would know it by lunchtime.

—Delinda C. Hanley