SANAA (Reuters)-an agreement mediated by Gulf of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh to give power could be completed in a week, officials said Tuesday, as Yemen struggles to avoid deeper into chaos to collapse. An official opposition said that the Secretary-General of the cooperation Council, Abdullatif al-Zayani, was expected to visit the capital Sanaa on Wednesday with an invitation for a signing ceremony in Riyadh early next week.
"We expect a scheme and signing of a deal to fill-the sooner the better," said another opposition leader, Mohammed Basindwa, who is seen as a top candidate to lead a transitional Government.
Yemen Western and Arab Gulf allies have been trying for weeks to mediate a solution to a three-month crisis in which protesters, inspired by the fall of leaders in Egypt and Tunisia, have taken to the streets demanding an end to the Saleh 32-year-rule.
On Tuesday killed snipers firing from rooftops an anti-Government protester in Taiz, South of Sanaa.
Washington and neighboring oil giant Saudi Arabia for fear that a descent into further bloodshed in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula, long on the brink of collapse, would offer more space for a Yemen-based al-Qaeda's regional wing to operate.
In a sign of the ongoing uncertainty regarding the plan, which Saleh required 30 days after the signature of the resignation, said a Gulf official that there still possible direct talks between the Yemeni sides held in Riyadh thrash out final terms before the signing of a pact.
The GCC said in a statement that Riyadh would host a meeting of foreign ministers of golf on Sunday at "the special procedures to take the initiative of Golf," which it said both sides in the Yemeni crisis had agreed on.
It gave no further details, including on one or more negotiations would take place before the signing of a deal.
Yemen who leads the Transitional Government will not only fight to destroy an aggressive al-Qaeda branch, who has tried to hit us and Saudi targets, but also inherit simmering rebellions in the North and South of the country.
The poorest state of the Arab world, which on a shipping route where three million barrels of oil per day pass is, has rapidly declining oil and water reserves facing an economic crisis as the rial currency plummets against the dollar and prices rocket.
CAUTIOUS WELCOME
A coalition of the opposition of Islamists, leftists and Arab nationalists removed a major obstacle on Monday when they agreed to participate in a transitional period, national unity Government, reversing their initial refusal.
The balance of power has tipped against Saleh after weeks of violence, military defections and political reversals. But to bridge disagreements within the opposition can be difficult once a transition deal is formalized.
"I want to believe that this is a step in the right direction ... It now seems promising, but it is less clear whether the promising in 15 or 20 days will seem, "said Shadi Hamid, Director of the Brookings Doha Center.
Opposition officials said that she finally agreed to the plan after receiving assurances from U.S. diplomats in Sanaa that Saleh would indeed step down within a month after the signing of the agreement.
They had been concerned Saleh, a wise political survivor, can foil the plan if Parliament rejected his resignation. The body is currently packed with members of his ruling party.
Yemen State press agency said ruling party members of Parliament on Tuesday, "stressed their rejection of any coup on democracy or the legality of the Constitution," under which Saleh deadline until 2013.
"We hope the opposition will meet all the obligations," said Sultan al-Barakani, the ruling party of Assistant Secretary General, adding that must include removal of "all the signs of political and security tensions."
Demonstrators looking for the immediate dismissals and Saleh persecution have vowed marches to their requirements, and it is not clear that opposition parties could stop them, even if the transition agreement should continue.
"We're going to see a growing gap between the informal opposition (street protesters) and the formal opposition," said Brookings ' Hamid. "I think it well beyond the control of political parties now."
Demonstrators also concerned that some of the opposition parties, many of them former allies of Saleh, only work together to create a larger proportion of the power and not to real change.
"We continue our revolution. We will not leave the streets because of this painful agreement, "said Hamdan Zayed in Sanaa, where thousands of protesters have been camped for three months.
About 130 protesters killed as unrest swept Yemen, where about 40 percent of its 23 million people on $ 2 per day or less and a third face chronic hunger.
The deal provides for Saleh Golf to appoint a Prime Minister of the coalition of the opposition, in presidential elections two months after his resignation. Experts ensure the window one month for him to resign offers time for potential sabotage.
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