ADEN, Yemen, March 18 (Xinhua) -- At least one secessionist protester was killed and three others injured during an anti- government protest in Yemen's southeastern province of Hadramout on Monday, a security official told Xinhua.
The police troops clashed with hundreds of pro-secession demonstrators in a rally against the national dialogue in Hadramout province, leaving one protester killed and three others injured, the local security official said on condition of anonymity.
"Secessionist activists organized mass rallies in Tarim city in protest against a national dialogue that opened in the capital Sanaa. One protester was killed in ongoing clashes with police troops there," the security source said.
On Monday, Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi opened a national dialogue that aimed at ending the country's prolonged political crisis.
The talks aim to end separatist movement in the south in order to preserve unity, create a new constitution and pave the way for holding parliamentary and presidential elections in February 2014 after a two-year transition led by Hadi.
However, leaders of the separatist Southern Movement refused to join the talks, insisting that the Sanaa government should withdraw northern troops from the south.
In the southern port city of Aden, tens of thousands of supporters of the pro-secession Southern Movement rallied Monday to protest against the national dialogue and called for their regions to be seceded from the north part.
The southerners complain of being economically and politically marginalized and discriminated against by the former regime since northern troops won a four-month civil war in 1994.
Hadi has repeatedly called for separatist groups in Aden and other major southern cities to join the takes, and has promised compensation and settlement to the southerners.
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