President Saleh witnesses military maneuvers

ODEIDAH, May 27 (Saba) – President Ali Abdullah Saleh witnessed on Thursday the final phase of the Military Maneuver May 22 IN Hodeidah. The maneuver involved units from the Northwest Military Region, the Air Forces and the Coastal Defense Forces. Carrying out such a major exercise in such a precise and logistic manner reflects of the high skills of the combatants,” said Commander of Marine and Coast Defense Forces, Roweis Mujawar who expressed warm welcome to President Saleh. Delivering a speech, President Saleh said that the exercises made the skills of the combatants come up to the estimation of the viewer. President Saleh said it was good that the exercises coincided with the celebrations 14th anniversary of the National Day, May 22. President Saleh said that even fellow Arab countries are proudly commemorating the Yemeni Day of Unification, which is “a lighting point in the history of the Arab World.” He regretted the “some elements working in opposition newspapers who don’t do (their job) responsibly”. “They just attempt to hurt the national unity and trigger splits within this major [military] organization.” “It is unsurprising that such elements hate you and your leadership. They call for the change of leadership, not by election polls but by conspiracy,” he said. “The road to holding power is the polls. And we have had three parliamentary elections, one presidential election and one municipal election. Yemen has always been pioneering in political and democratic reforms,” he elaborated. “Unfortunately these elements want to use their jobs to look like heroes. They want us to imprison them so that they appear like oppressed heroes (who are suffering because of their principles). But that will not happen. We respect democracy, human rights and law. Let them say whatever they want. And we will eventually have to carry out all political reforms they want, the same reforms applied by the US in Iraq and Afghanistan. That will happen to meet their requests since they go to foreign embassies begging for American-style reforms. The American style (of reforms) is easily visible in Iraq and Afghanistan.” The President accused the elements of thinking in Imamite way. Finally, he expressed good wishes for the training troops. AA/KMSABA