N Korean Scuds to reach Yemen today

Yemen on Wednesday forced the US to beat a swift and public retreat, two days after the unflagged freighter was seized by two Spanish frigates from a US-led international counter-terrorism fleet.

Meanwhile, Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh, citing the importance of Japanese economic aid, has pledged not to buy North Korean missiles again, the Foreign Ministry here said today.

Saleh made the promise in a message conveyed by Yemeni ambassador Abdul Rahman al-Hothi, a day after Tokyo threatened to freeze its aid over North Korea’s shipment of Scud missiles to Yemen.

The message confirmed that the missiles would be ‘‘used purely for defensive purposes’’ and would never be handed over to third countries, the Ministry said in a press release. ‘‘Yemen will never again repeat this kind of act,’’ the release said. Ministry officials explained that particular sentence meant that Yemen will not import any missiles from North Korea again.

Yesterday, the Ministry summoned the Yemeni envoy and told him North Korea’s development, deployment and exports of missiles were a menace to the world. Hiroyasu Ando, who heads the Ministry’s West Asia bureau, reminded the envoy that Japan pays ‘‘full attention to exports and imports of weapons’’ in considering its official aid to developing countries.