SANAA, YEMEN . Ali Abdullah Saleh, the Yemeni President being treated for shrapnel wounds in Riyadh, will not go home, a top Saudi official said Friday, contrary to Sanaa's insistence he will return soon.

A Yemeni official promptly denied the claim, as hundreds of thousands of anti-Saleh demonstrators pressed for an interim ruling council that would replace the veteran leader.

"The Yemeni President will not return to Yemen," said the Saudi official, requesting anonymity.

"It has not been decided where he will stay," he added, apparently suggesting Mr. Saleh might eventually leave Saudi Arabia for another country. The official did not say whether the decision was taken by Mr. Saleh himself.

Abdo al-Janadi, Yemen's deputy information minister, dismissed the claim. "President Saleh will return in the coming few days," he said.

The Yemeni President was flown to Riyadh on June 4 on a Saudi medical aircraft, a day after he was wounded in a bomb explosion at a mosque inside his presidential compound. He has not been seen in public since.

Reports on his condition have been sketchy, but King Hamad of Bahrain and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia spoke to him by phone this week.

In his absence, his deputy Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi has been coming under intense local and international pressure to heed protesters' calls for an interim ruling council, which would prevent Mr. Saleh returning to power.

But Mr. Hadi's ability to make decisions is in doubt as Mr. Saleh's relatives -mainly his son Ahmed, who leads the elite Republican Guard -continue to run main security systems.

On Monday, protesters gave Mr. Hadi 24 hours to declare his position on their call for him to join the proposed council, which they said would lead the country for up to nine months. The council would "appoint a nationalist and compatible figure to form a government of technocrats."

They also called for the dissolution of parliament and Yemen's consultative council, Other demands included forming a committee to draw up a new constitution and setting dates for a referendum on the constitution and elections.

Anti-Saleh demonstrations raged Friday across Yemen, urging the forming of the interim council, while a call for Saleh loyalists was poorly attended.

"Oh King Abdullah, keep Ali Abdullah [Saleh]," they chanted in Sanaa.

Mr. Saleh, who has been in power since 1978, has refused to endorse a Gulf states' proposal for him to transfer power to his deputy and resign in return for parliamentary immunity against prosecution.

His presidential term is due to end in 2013.