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Yemen has granted political asylum to Iraq's envoy to the Arab League (AL) following the downfall of the Iraqi government, the Yemeni foreign ministry said in Sanaa Sunday.
"Yemen has informed ambassador Mohsen Khalil, Iraq's permanent ambassador to the Arab League in Cairo, of its decision to grant him political asylum," a foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement.
Khalil, also Iraq's ambassador to Egypt, had served as Iraq's ambassador to Sanaa from 1992 to 1997. He applied for asylum on April 9, the day US tanks rolled into central Baghdad.
Khalil was expected to arrive in Yemen soon, but it remained unknown how long he will stay in Yemen. He is not among the list of 55 top Iraqi officials sought by the United States.
Meanwhile, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh called on officials to help Yemeni diplomats and some 4,000 Yemeni students return home from Iraq, which is under control of US and British forces.
Yemen, which vehemently opposes the US-led war against Iraq, has witnessed the largest protests in the Mideast against the US-led invasion of Iraq since it started on March 20.
(Xinhua News Agency April 14, 2003)
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