Yemen president allowed to visit U.S.

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration will allow Yemen's outgoing president to come to the United States temporarily for medical treatment, a move aimed at easing the political transition in Yemen, a key counterterrorism partner.

A senior administration official said Ali Abdullah Saleh would travel to New York this week, and probably stay in the United States until no later than the end of February.

U.S. officials believe Saleh's exit from Yemen could lower the risk of disruptions leading up to presidential elections planned in that country on Feb. 21.

A presidential spokesman in Yemen said Saleh had left the capital of San'a earlier yesterday on a jet headed for the Persian Gulf sultanate of Oman.

The U.S. official did not say whether Saleh planned to return to Yemen, Oman or elsewhere after finishing his treatment in the United States.

The Yemeni embassy in Washington said Saleh planned to return home in February to attend a swearing-in ceremony for the country's newly elected president.

The mercurial Saleh, who ruled Yemen for more than three decades, agreed to transfer power to his vice president late last year in exchange for immunity from prosecution. He had faced months of protests calling for his ouster, to which the Yemeni government responded with a bloody crackdown, leaving hundreds of protesters dead and sparking wider violence in the capital with rival militia. -- AP