[29/September/2012]

WASHINGTON, Sep. 29 (Saba) - President Abdo Rabbo Mansour Hadi delivered on Friday a lecture in Washington's Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars on the political, security and economic developments in the country.

The President spoke of the geographical strategic location of Yemen that overlooks one of the most important waterways in the world, which is Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

"If the international shipping movement in this line have been and is still affected by piracy caused by the long civil war in Somalia, we can imagine the catastrophic situation of the international shipping movement if a civil war was erupt in Yemen, especially in the presence of terrorist cells," which took advantage of the security disruption during the past 18 months and tried to control some Yemeni provinces overlooking the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea.

The political leadership managed, after the last February presidential election, to thwart the terrorist militants' attempts and cleansed the provinces in less then a month, Hadi said.

"Any turmoil in Yemen would affect significantly the world and region, therefore the country's security and unity is an international and regional interests."

Concerning the political situation, the President pointed to the strong actions Yemen has made to underpin democracy and political pluralism since the 1990 unification, in spite of some mistakes of mismanagement and corruption, which finally led to the protests in the beginning of 2011 demanding change.

Hadi said that the automatic negative effects of the complex change process has aggravated the political, security and economic impasses, however, the Yemenis managed to reach a political settlement under the Gulf initiative to transfer power peacefully thanks to the GCC's states, the USA, European Union and the UN.

"Yemen has completed the first stage of the initiative and working on the second stage", Hadi said.

Although, Yemen still needs political and economic support to help in carrying out the rest of the Gulf initiative's items, topped by the comprehensive national dialogue, which is being prepared now and would be launched soon.

"We are so determined to achieve the Yemeni people's ambitions of stability, security and welfare, which definitely will impact on the world and region's security", the president said.

AF

Saba