BEIRUT (Dispatches) –
Hezbollah resistance movement’s deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Qassem, has called on Saudi Arabia to apologize to the Lebanese government after it summoned the latter’s envoy over Information Minister George Kordahi’s comments on the Yemen war.
Qassem told Al-Manar that Saudi Arabia had “caused trouble for Lebanon under the pretext of Kordahi’s remarks.”
“Saudi launched a diplomatic aggression on Lebanon, but its real target has always been Hezbollah and its military power,” he added, calling on Riyadh to “concede and apologize to the Lebanese people.”
Member of the Loyalty to the Resistance bloc in the Lebanese parliament, Hassan Fadlallah, said on Saturday that his country was facing a “fabricated crisis, under the title of relations with some Arab countries,” stressing that Lebanon was “entirely shaken” for Saudi Arabia’s decision to sever ties with Lebanon.
Saudi Arabia recalled its ambassador from Lebanon and expelled the Lebanese envoy to Riyadh late last month.
The UAE, Bahrain, and Kuwait have, however, followed in Saudi Arabia’s footsteps by severing their diplomatic ties with Lebanon.
The move came after Kordahi said during a television program that the 2015-present Saudi-led war on Yemen was an act of aggression by Riyadh and the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom’s most significant ally in the military campaign.
He called the war “absurd,” saying it had to stop because he was opposed to wars between Arabs. The minister also said the Yemeni army forces and their allied fighters from the Popular Committees were “defending themselves... against an external aggression.”
The war has killed tens of thousands of Yemenis and pushed the entire Yemen close to the brink of outright famine.
Meanwhile, the Arab League on Monday pressed for an easing of tensions between Lebanon and Persian Gulf Arab states.
“We do not want this situation to continue. We want a breakthrough, a détente in this relationship,” the League’s assistant secretary general, Hossam Zaki, said in a press conference from Beirut where he is on an official visit.
“We hope the starting point for that will begin here,” he told reporters following a meeting with Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati.