Almotamar Net -UPI - The Yemeni government is hoping President Ali Abdullah Saleh's visit to Washington will improve relations.

The official Yemeni News Agency, SABA, said Saleh's talks with U.S. officials, including President Bush, will focus on Middle East issues in the Palestinian territories and Iraq, as well as the war on terror and Yemen's efforts to introduce political and economic reforms.

Official sources said special attention will be paid to freedoms in Yemen and terrorism.

U.S. Ambassador in Yemen Thomas Krajeski said in recent comments that the process of democracy in Yemen has stopped.

Political observer and political sciences professor at the University of Sanaa, Samir Abbadi, described Krajeski's remarks as "a political blackmail on the part of the U.S. administration ahead of Saleh's visit to Washington aimed at exerting maximum pressures on the Yemeni leadership."

He said despite lukewarm Yemeni-U.S. relations, there are common points on the agendas of the two parties.

The Americans are seeking maximum cooperation from the Yemenis in terms of intelligence information and military and logistics assistance on land and in the sea to boost the U.S. war on terrorism and dry up the financial and humanitarian resources of terrorism, which is believed to have taken Yemen as a main base, Abbadi contended.

The United States also wants the terror suspects extradited, including Sheik Abdel Majid Zandani, the politburo chief of the opposition Reform Party, and is seeking more reforms in Yemen.

On the other hand, Yemen is unhappy with U.S. assistance and is seeking an increase in U.S. financial and economic aid in return for its cooperation in combating terrorism, including tightening control on its land and sea borders to curb smuggling and infiltration of gunmen.