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Yemeni president 'will crush activists' but welcomes talks
Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen's president, warned he would crush activists calling for southern independence while he offered to engage them in dialogue over their demands.
"The separatist flags are going to burn in the days and weeks ahead. We have one flag we voted on with our free will," Mr Saleh said in an address at a military academy on Monday.
"Come talk with your brothers in the authority, and we will talk with you. We extend the hand of dialogue without [your] having to resort to violence or blocking roads or raising the flag of separation."
Saleh said his government would form local committees to talk with the southern activists. "If there are any political demands, they are welcome. Come to dialogue.
"We reject the spreading of the culture of hate, racism and regionalism." In 1990, the Marxist-led south and tribal-dominated north made peace after years of fighting to form Yemen, but the deal between the People's General Congress and the Yemeni Socialist Party fell apart and a political crisis developed, leading to civil war in 1994.