BEIRUT (Dispatches) – Lebanon’s foreign minister has asked the president to be relieved of his duties, the presidency said, after his televised comments appearing to blame Persian Gulf states for the rise of Daesh caused a diplomatic firestorm.
“Those countries of love, friendship and fraternity, they brought us Daesh,” Charbel Wehbe, who is a minister in the caretaker government, told Alhurra TV on Monday, without naming the countries.
When asked if by “those countries,” he meant the Arab states in the Persian Gulf region, Wehbe declined to name any specific countries. But answering another question about whether those Arab states had funded Daesh, he said, “Who funded them then, was it me?!”
Wehbe made the comment during a verbal duel with a Saudi guest on the show, who blamed Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun for “handing over” his country to the Lebanese resistance movement, Hezbollah. Wehbe stormed off the TV set saying he would not be “insulted by a Bedouin”.
Wehbe apologized on Tuesday, saying he did not mean to offend “brotherly Arab countries”.
After meeting President Michel Aoun, Wehbe said he had submitted a request to step down “in light of the recent developments and the circumstances that accompanied the interview I gave to a television station”.
Earlier, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain had summoned Lebanese ambassadors respectively to protest against Wehbe’s remarks.
The Saudi Foreign Ministry called in the Lebanese ambassador to Riyadh and handed over a memorandum to him, officially protesting “the offense” committed by Wehbe and his “shameful comments” toward the kingdom, said the statement released by the official Saudi Press Agency.
Kuwait and Bahrain also summoned the Lebanese ambassador and Charge d’affaires respectively and handed them protest notes.
Lebanese President Michel Aoun said on Tuesday that Wehbe’s comments about Arab states of the Persian Gulf region did not reflect official policy, and that Beirut was keen to maintain good relations with the countries.
Lebanon’s outgoing Prime Minister Hassan Diab also said he had sought an explanation from Wehbe, adding that his country was eager to preserve the “best relations” with Saudi Arabia and other states in the Persian Gulf region.
Saad Hariri, the prime minister-designate who owes much of his family fortune to Saudi Arabia’s support, also criticized Wehbe, saying his remarks were “not in accordance with diplomatic norms.”