Khatami in Yemeni capital

Iranian President Mohammed Khatami arrived here yesterday on a two-day official visit, the first by an Iranian president to Yemen, upon the invitation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Khatami's visit is part of the third leg of his one-week four-nation regional tour that has already taken him to Lebanon and Syria.

The Yemen official news agen-cy said Khatami's talks with Saleh would include means of enhancing bilateral relations and mutual cooperation, and exchange of views on regional and international developments.

About 17 agreements and protocols, in the field of security, economy, investment, and culture will be signed during the visit. While receiving Khatami at Sanaa airport, President Saleh made it clear that the talks with his Iranian counterpart would focus on common concerns of the region after the U.S.-led aggression on Iraq and the American presence in the region. He said the two countries concurred on matters of regional security.

For his part, President Khatami emphasised the willingness of the two countries to exert more efforts toward peace and stability in the region. In Lebanon, Khatami said differences between Iran and the United States were "serious and huge", despite U.N.-sponsored talks between the two old foes. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said earlier on Thursday that Washington currently has no plans to take military action to stop Iran's nuclear programme, which, Washington says, is a cover to develop nuclear weap-ons.Iran denies the claims.

The visit was scheduled to take place late last year but was postponed perhaps due to the developments in Iraq. Some sources here attributed the delay to security arrangements for the visit.

The visit will, undoubtedly, refresh the existing relations between the two fraternal countries. The relations have developed over the past decade, especially after the visit made by President Ali Abdullah Saleh to Tehran in 2000, which was considered by political analysts as a turning point in the history of Yemen-Iran relations.

Some 40 agreements and memoranda of understanding dealing with the means of enhancing the bilateral cooperation in political, economic, cultural and scientific fields have been signed between the two countries since 1990.

Further, Sanaa and Tehran have witnessed six high-profile meetings of the supreme joint committee following which the commercial exchanges improved ten times since 1990.

The Iranian President's delegation include Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi, Min-ister of Housing and Urban Deve-lopment Ali Abdolalizadeh, Min-ister of Economy and Finance Tahmasb Mazaheri, Minister of Agricultural Jihad, Mahmoud Hojjati and Minister of Interior Abdolvahed Mousavi Lari, along with other senior officials.