EU urges to address crisis in Yemen via dialogue, EU official says

SANA'A, April 11 (Saba) - The European Union (EU) is keen to encourage the involved parties in the Yemeni crisis to address the issues of disagreement via dialogue, a European official said on Monday.

During his meeting with the President Ali Abdullah Saleh, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nickolay Mladenov affirmed that the main goals of the visit are Yemen's unity, security and stability.

The President reiterated his keenness on holding dialogue and freedom of expression peacefully away from chaos, sabotage and shedding blood, pointing to his directives to the security authorities to protect pro-government and opposition sit-ins and not to use force.

Saleh said that the Joint Meeting Parties (JMPs) always seek to confront with security forces, storm the governmental and private facilities, block roads, attacking citizens and security forces as well as media amplification of some incidents contrived by them to mislead the public opinion.

He looked forward to a European role in promoting for a dialogue among the Yemeni political powers in the light of the presented initiatives to tackle the crisis and to maintain the unity and security of Yemen.

Saleh and Mladenov reviewed the joint cooperation relations between Yemen and Bulgaria in addition to the last developments in the domestic arena.