**The UK is hosting a high-level meeting intended to galvanise international support for Yemen.**It has been called by Gordon Brown in the wake of the alleged attempt to blow up a US airliner on Christmas day.
Al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen claimed responsibility and there are growing fears that the country could become a haven for terrorists.
The summit in London aims to find ways to address the long-term ills that have fed extremism within Yemen’s borders.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other world leaders will discuss how to stabilise the poverty-stricken nation.
Yemeni Prime Minister Ali Mujawar will also attend the talks.
Complex and profound
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the suspect in the alleged bomb plot, is said to have told investigators that he was supplied with explosives in Yemen.
BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner said the state’s problems were both complex and profound.
“The poorest Arab country, its population is ballooning, oil revenues are dwindling, the water tables are sinking and its fighting a bloody insurgency that has already embroiled the Saudi Army on its northern border,” he said.
“Supporting the government of Yemen is crucial to the stability of that country but it is also crucial to the stability of the world”
Ivan Lewis
Foreign Office minister
“Into that unhappy mix comes a resurgent Al-Qaeda that has chosen Yemen for its new base in the Middle East, and is now threatening to use it as a springboard to attack the West and its allies.”
Foreign Office minister Ivan Lewis said the meeting was important because Yemen was “not a failed state, but it is an incredibly fragile state”.
He added: “We want to see Yemen’s neighbours make a more significant contribution and we want the international community to come together and recognise that supporting the government of Yemen is crucial to the stability of that country but it is also crucial to the stability of the world.”
Yemen’s foreign minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi said that his country wanted “international support to build infrastructure, combat poverty and create jobs, as well as support in combating terrorism”.
But he told the BBC that the idea of US military bases on Yemeni soil was “inconceivable”.
Ginny Hill, an associate fellow at Chatham House in London, told the BBC that the sense of urgency underpinning the summit stemmed from the fact that Yemen was a “collapsing state”.
She added: "Oil revenues are falling, as oil production turns downward and there is currently little inward investment to support a sustainable economic base.
“Terrorist networks are likely to grow as the state collapses, so an effective counterterrorism strategy requires a long-term commitment to development, good governance and state building.”