Yemeni president urges opposition to “stop playing with fire”

SANA’A, May 16 (Saba)- A speech was addressed by President Ali Abdullah Saleh to a pro-government rally staged in Sana’a last Friday. We salute this million-man crowd of great Yemeni people in all the governorates. This month, we will celebrate the national day of the 22nd of May. We congratulate the great Yemeni people on these feelings and unprecedented enthusiasm and support for constitutional legitimacy. We call upon all the sons of the country to be united in one rank to face all economic, political, and subversive challenges caused by the operatives of the Joint Meeting Parties, the JMP, who block roads and kill the people whose souls it is not permissible to kill. JMP and your allies, stop playing with fire. Our people, in all villages, districts, and suburbs, backed by our brave Armed Forces, will not stand idle; they will respond properly. On Wednesday, you attacked government institutions, killed people whose souls are not permissible to kill, and assaulted the building of the Cabinet and the radio building, and previously assaulted Al-Thawrah Sports City. These are acts of sabotage; you have damaged in three months what we have been constructing for 32 years. These are the subversive elements that want to profit at the expense of those in power to slaughter our Yemeni people, cut out their tongues, behead them and block roads. O JMP and the lawless elements that support it, stop playing with fire. Our people will have to defend their institutions, villages, houses. We will face the challenge with a challenge. Those who want power have to get it through ballot boxes. No killing the souls of the people whose souls it is not permissible to kill, no road blocking, no cutting off gas and oil in Ma’rib; these belong to the people, not the General People’s Congress [GPC] or the JMP – these belong to the people. You get your salaries through them, people live on these resources. O JMP, stop playing with fire. These are subversive elements; they are not loyal to the country. We call upon everyone to start constructive dialogue, sponsored by any side, anywhere. We call upon you to start a reasonable dialogue. Saba