Yemeni Interior Ministry said Saturday that it has tightened security in the streets of the capital Sanaa as a precautionary measure ahead of a UN delegation' s visit due on Sunday.

In a statement on its website, the ministry said it bans the carrying of licensed arms and the circulation of motorcycles in Sanaa from Saturday evening to Monday.

Meanwhile, reinforcements to police patrols and security checkups have been witnessed in major streets of Sanaa.

Security officials said that a group of U.S. Marines arrived in Sanaa Saturday to take part in securing the Sanaa airport and the residence of the arriving diplomats in the hotels.

The security measures came one day ahead of the arrival of a UN Security Council delegation and other foreign diplomats.

Government officials said the UN delegation will meet President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and his interim government to push Yemeni rival forces for holding a stalled national dialogue as per a UN- backed power transfer deal that eased former President Ali Abdullah Saleh from power last year following a yearlong deadly street protests.

Abdullatif al-Zayani, the head of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) that brokered the power transfer deal, arrived in Sanaa on Saturday to participate in Sunday's meeting, Saba said.

The national dialogue scheduled to be launched in mid-November 2012 in line with the deal has been delayed as the government's negotiations with pro-secession southern leaders ran into trouble.

Leaders of activists in Yemen's southern regions insist that people in the south must be granted the right to self- determination of independence as a precondition for talks, according to a recent statement by the pro-secession Southern Movement.

The dialogue's agenda includes resolving the disputes among the rival forces in post-Saleh era, addressing the southerners' complains of restructuring the army, rewriting the constitution, forming an election committee and holding the presidential election at the end of the transitional period in 2014. Endi

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