Yemeni Leaders Sign Pact to End Crisis
Feuding Yemeni leaders signed a reconciliation agreement Sunday designed to end a six-month leadership crisis and bring about political and economic reforms.
In a state ceremony here, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and his vice president, Ali Salim Bidh, signed the 32-page document, which also bore the signatures of 39 other Yemeni politicians.
The agreement envisages a dilution of presidential powers and decentralization of authority aimed at better distribution of resources and economic development.
Bidh and his southern Yemeni followers have accused the northern Yemenis, led by Saleh, of trying to dominate the country and failing to unify the armed forces.
Present-day Yemen was created in May, 1990, when North Yemen and South Yemen merged, but it has been plagued by political violence and a breakdown in law and order.
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