Downing Street Says » Yemen Meeting

Asked what the Prime Minister hoped to achieve at the meeting on Yemen, the PMS said that there would be a focus on how the Yemenis could deal with the challenge of security.

We were expecting around twenty delegations including the Yemeni Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, Deputy Prime Minister of Planning and the Deputy Prime Minister for Security and Defence. We also expected Foreign Ministers or equivalent from all Gulf Co-operation Council countries (Saudi, Qatar, UAE, Oman, Kuwait Bahrain); all G8 countries (US, Canada, Italy, France, Germany, Japan, Russia); Egypt, Jordan and Turkey; the Netherlands; China, as well as a number of international organisations, including Baroness Ashton for the EU.

The Yemenis were facing many serious economic, political and security problems. If not addressed, these problems could affect the security of the region. The focus of the meeting would be on how we could best co-ordinate international efforts to support the Government of Yemen in their efforts to address the wider social, economic and political problems. Only by doing this would we be able to secure long-term security, stability and prosperity for the people of Yemen.

Asked if the Prime Minister agreed with the Defence Secretary that we faced the prospect of fighting smaller terrorist wars all over the region, the PMS said that the key thing was that we helped those countries that had security problems, which were often linked to wider socio-economic problems. We needed to ensure that these countries were able to deal with problems themselves and as part of the international community we needed to help.

Asked if Britain had an offer for Yemen in terms of financial or military support, the PMS said that the meeting today was not a pledging meeting; the UK Government was one of the major contributors of aid to the Yemeni Government.

Put that the Yemeni Government did not want any foreign troops on its land and that conditions could be put on any aid received, the PMS said that it was UK policy generally that we didn’t have attached conditions to aid, but that was a separate issue to ensuring that we helped the Yemeni Government to deal with the security issues they faced.

Asked if Hilary Clinton would attend the Yemen meeting and the Afghanistan conference, the PMS said yes.

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» Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Yemen Meeting

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