Sanaa, Yemen:
Yemen's US-backed president, in power for more than three decades, pledged Wednesday not to seek another term in office in an apparent attempt to defuse protests inspired by Tunisia's revolt and the turmoil in Egypt.
The concession by Ali Abdullah Saleh signaled that another autocratic Arab leader once thought immune to challenge was ceding ground to pent-up fury and demands for reform of the kind that have swept the region. It came one day after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, target of nine days of protest calling for his ouster, made a the same pledge gave a similar speech on television.
Yet Saleh's move posed questions about stability in a nation seen by the Obama administration as a key ally in its fight against Islamic militants. Al-Qaida's Yemeni offshoot claimed responsibility for a failed Christmas Day 2009 attempt to blow up a passenger jet over the United States, and the attempt late last year to ship parcel bombs to the U.S. through cargo planes.
"I won't seek to extend my presidency for another term or have my son inherit it," Saleh told parliament.
But the opposition greeted his announcement with skepticism, and there were no plans to cancel mass protests scheduled for Thursday in the capital, Sanaa, and across the country.
Saleh, 64, previously tried to defuse tensions in Yemen by raising salaries for the army. Yet tens of thousands gathered last month in demonstrations urging Saleh to step down -- a red line that few dissenters had previously dared to cross.
Saleh's current term in office expires in 2013 but proposed amendments to the constitution could let him remain in power for two additional terms of ten years.
After the Tunisian revolt, which forced that country's president to flee into exile, and protests in Egypt calling for the end of Mubarak's 30-year rule, Saleh ordered income taxes slashed in half and instructed his government to control prices. He deployed police and soldiers to key areas in Sanaa, but the protests continued.
In the parliament, Saleh called upon the opposition to meet for a dialogue on political reforms and their demands.
Opposition spokesman Mohammed al-Sabri rejected the call and expressed doubts about Saleh's pledge not to seek re-election. Al-Sabri said Saleh made a similar promise in 2006, but then failed to fulfill it, ran again and was re-elected.
"The calls for dialogue are not serious and are merely meant to be tranquilizers," al-Sabri told The Associated Press.
Yemen is the Arab world's most impoverished nation and has become a haven for al-Qaida militants. Saleh's government is riddled with corruption, has little control outside the capital, and its main source of income -- oil -- could run dry in a decade.
Nearly half of Yemen's population lives below the poverty line of $2 a day and doesn't have access to proper sanitation. Less than a tenth of the roads are paved. Tens of thousands have been displaced from their homes by conflict. The country is wrestling with a lingering rebellion in the north and a secessionist movement in the south.
Saleh's ruling National Congress Party has 240 seats in the 301-member parliament. The opposition consists of mainly leftist and Islamic parties. They include the Socialists, who governed south Yemen before the north and the south merged in 1990, and the fundamentalist Islamic Islah Party.
The U.S., which provides millions in military aid to Yemen, considers one of Islah's leaders, Sheik Abdul-Majid al-Zindani, to be linked to al-Qaida.
As in Egypt, where Mubarak's son Gamal was believed to be preparing to succeed his father, Saleh's son Ahmed -- an army brigadier and head of the presidential guard and special forces -- was also believed to be groomed for succession.
Yemen has been the site of numerous anti-U.S. attacks dating back to the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Aden harbor, which killed 17 American sailors. Radical U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, thought to be hiding in Yemen, is suspected of having inspired some attacks, including the deadly 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas.