Jeddah, Jun 15 (AFP) The oil-rich Gulf states will press their efforts to broker an end to a political crisis in impoverished Yemen which has seen hundreds of people killed in five months of protests, the UAE foreign minister has said.
"The unstable situation in Yemen is top of our agenda," Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahayan yesterday told a foreign ministers' meeting of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in the Saudi Red Sea city of Jeddah.
"We have made huge efforts to reconcile the opposing points of view and our efforts are certainly going to continue without let-up," Sheikh Abdullah said.
The Gulf ministers had come under huge pressure from opponents of veteran Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh to back an interim council to oversee a transition from his 33-year rule.