U.S. uses Saudi relationship to press Saleh's resignation

Mr. Saleh is recovering from surgery in Saudi Arabia after being attacked at his compound Washington pressed Saudi Arabia to persuade Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh to resign after he flew to Riyadh for medical treatment, diplomats said.  U.S. officials insisted Saleh must now be urged to agree

to a deal under which he would give up power in exchange for immunity from prosecution and financial guarantees about his future, the diplomats told The Guardian newspaper of Britain.

The White House and State Department had no immediate comment. Saudi officials also had no immediate comment.

Washington stopped supporting Saleh in early April -- after long backing him, even in the face of widespread protests in Yemen -- because U.S. officials determined he was unlikely to bring about the required reforms and must therefore be eased out of office, U.S. and Yemeni officials said.

But U.S. officials were unable to influence Saleh, directly or indirectly, to step down.

U.S. President Barack Obama sent his top Yemeni adviser, John O. Brennan, to Saudi Arabia last week in the hope of finding a way of easing Saleh out, The New York Times said.

After Saleh went to Saudi Arabia Saturday to be treated for wounds suffered in a attack on the presidential compound Friday, Brennan spoke by phone with Yemeni Vice President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who became acting president under the Yemeni Constitution, U.S. officials said.

U.S. Ambassador to Yemen Gerald Feierstein met with Hadi Sunday, Yemen's state-run Saba News Agency reported.

But Saudi-owned al-Arabiya TV said Hadi was only a figurehead and Saleh's son, Ahmed, commander of the powerful Republican Guard, was actually running the country in his father's absence. The younger Saleh is known for vast corruption throughout the capital, the Financial Times reported.

Yemen's ruling party, the General People's Congress, insisted the elder Saleh would be back, even as Western diplomats expressed doubt.