Saudi and Yemeni border authorities are to hold emergency talks in a bid to defuse tension over a so-called âsecurity wallâ being erected by the kingdom on the Yemeni frontier, the Saudi-owned Asharq Al-Awsat daily said yesterday. Saudi authorities have refused to call the barrier along a 42km portion of the border with Yemen a âsecurity wallâ opting instead for the term âcement-filled pipeline,â the London-based newspaper said.
| Really. We don't make this stuff up... |
âThe cement-filled pipeline being built inside our territories is aimed at curbing infiltration and smuggling,â Lieutenant General Talal Aankawi, chief of the Saudi border patrol, was quoted as saying by the paper. Yemeni authorities claim that the barrier is being built in a common grazing area that had been agreed in a June 2000 deal that ended a decades-long territorial dispute between the two countries. Saudi Arabia frequently announces arrests and arms seizures along the 1,800-kilometer (more than 1,100-mile) border with Yemen, with authorities saying at the end of December that they arrested 4,047 âinfiltratorsâ and seized weapons and ammunition in Najran province. |