Yemen's opposition today said it will not join a unity government, expected to be offered by President Ali Abdullah Saleh, saying today it was sticking with popular demands that he end his three-decade rule.
Mr Saleh had expressed willingness to form a unity government within hours during a meeting with religious leaders today, a government source present at the meeting told Reuters.
The source quoted Saleh as saying: "I am ready to offer a national unity government within hours and I am asking the opposition to name its representatives in the government."
Mr Saleh, a US ally against al-Qaeda's Yemen-based wing, has been struggling to quell daily demonstrations that have swept across the impoverished Arabian Peninsula state, leaving 24 people dead in the past two weeks.
Yemen's opposition, already planning countrywide protests tomorrow, said it would not accept such a proposal.
"The opposition decided to stand with the people's demand for the fall of the regime, and there is no going back from that," said Mohammed al-Sabry, a spokesman for Yemen's umbrella opposition coalition, the Joint Meeting Party.
Opposition to Mr Saleh, previously fighting intermittent Shia revolt in the north and separatist rebellion in the south, grew under student- and activist-led protests galvanised by successful uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia.
The activist movement attracted support from some of Yemen's main tribal groups as well as the opposition coalition.
Elsewhere, in Oman, protesters demanding jobs and political reforms blocked roads to a main port in the north of the Gulf Arab sultanate as looters trashed a nearby supermarket today, and demonstrations spread to the capital.
A doctor said six people had died in clashes between stone-throwing protesters and police yesterday in the northern industrial town of Sohar, although Oman's health minister said only one person died and 20 were injured.
Hundreds of protesters blocked access to an industrial area that includes the port, a refinery and aluminium factory. A port spokeswoman said exports of refined oil products that typically amount to 160,000 barrels per day from the port were unaffected.
"We want to see the benefit of our oil wealth distributed evenly to the population," one protester said over a loudhailer near the port. "We want to see a scale-down of expatriates in Oman so more jobs can be created for Omanis," he yelled.
Peaceful protests also spread to other cities, with hundreds of people demonstrating outside a government ministerial complex in Muscat and at another site in the capital.
The unrest in Sohar, Oman's main industrial centre, was a rare outbreak of discontent in the normally sleepy sultanate ruled by Sultan Qaboos bin Said for four decades, and follows a wave of pro-democracy protests across the Arab world.
The sultan, trying to calm tensions, promised yesterday to create more jobs, give unemployment benefits and study widening the authority of a quasi-parliamentary advisory council.
Reuters