Larijani: Iran "strongly" supports Yemen's national unity

Larijani: Iran "strongly" supports Yemen's national unity Sana'a, Yemen - Iran's Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said on Wednesday that his country "strongly" supports Yemen's unity and called the Arabian Peninsula state to enter into dialogue with opposition groups to consolidate its unity.

"We strongly support the national unity in Yemen," Larijani told reporters after talks with Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Sana'a.

"We think all issues in Yemen can be sorted out through the political dialogue, and we support this approach," he said.

Larijani arrived in Sana'a late on Tuesday on a two-day visit for talks on bilateral relations, Yemeni state media said.

Yemeni officials have accused Iran of backing the Shiite rebellion that hit the north-western province of Saada for more than four years.

Fighting between army forces and the rebels, who belong to the Zaidi sect of Shiite Islam, and known as Houthis, has flared intermittently in Saada since mid-2004, leaving hundreds of soldiers and insurgents dead.

Violent protests called by southern separatists who want the south to secede from the rest of Yemen have in recent weeks engulfed southern cities, leaving dozens of casualties among protesters and security forces.

On March 31, a Yemeni state security court convicted two Yemenis of spying for Iran and sentenced them to death. The court acquitted a third defendant.

The court found the two convicts guilty of "illegal contact with a foreign state, and the transmission of military information to it."(dpa)