Pakistan, Yemen sign five agreements

Islamabad, Apr 10 (UNI) Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and his Yemeni counterpart Ali Abdullah Saleh today reaffirmed their commitment to forging cooperation to fight terrorism jointly and agreed to invigorate private sector participation for increased bilateral trade and economic ties.

President Musharraf and his counterpart Saleh, whose visit is the first by a Yemeni leader to Pakistan in almost two decades, went into an exclusive meeting immediately after the formal welcome ceremony for the visiting leader at the Aiwan-e-Sadr.

Later, senior aides from the two sides joined their leaders at bilateral talks, which focused on consolidating economic and trade ties followed by signing of five agreements to strengthen ties in trade, sports, tourism and education fields.

President Musharraf, later, told a joint press conference with Saleh saying that Pakistan and Yemen have tremendous scope for investment, joint ventures and their private sectors can identify products for bilateral trade.

''The government will facilitate the private sector, which should explore new areas of commerce and economic cooperation - this way we will be able to give further strength to our excellent political and diplomatic relations--we will have broad-based ties with Yemen,'' he stated.

The Pakistan leader said his country would also cooperate with Yemen in meeting needs of Yemeni police and security forces.

''We will also cooperate with Yemen in the area of defence production and security related areas.'' Gen Musharraf said, the two countries have agreed to intensify intelligence cooperation to combat terrorism and extremism jointly.

''We have decided to closely cooperate in the intelligence field so that we can have a joint strategy against terrorism,'' he said.

President Musharraf, who visited Yemen in December 2005, also vowed to open doors of Pakistani universities to Yemeni students, especially its new soon-to-be-established science and technology institutions of higher learning.

UNI XC MSJ RAI2346