BEIRUT (AFP) – Kuwait’s
foreign minister said Sunday that he has given Lebanese authorities a list of suggested measures to be taken to ease a diplomatic rift with Persian Gulf Arab countries.
The proposal were delivered to Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati and President Michel Aoun during a visit by Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Ahmed Nasser al-Mohammed Al-Sabah, the first to Lebanon by a senior Persian Gulf official since a spat erupted last year.
The visit, coordinated with Persian Gulf Arab states, is part of wider efforts to restore trust between Lebanon and its Persian Gulf neighbors as the country grapples with an unprecedented financial crisis.
A list “of ideas and suggestions was presented yesterday and mentioned again today to the president”, Sheikh Ahmed told reporters Sunday after meeting with Aoun.
“We are now waiting for a response from them on these suggestions,” he added, refusing to elaborate on the proposed steps.
Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib will visit Kuwait at the end of the month, Sheikh Ahmed said.
Mikati was also invited to visit the oil-rich emirate, he added, without specifying a date.
In October, Saudi Arabia and its allies suspended diplomatic ties with Lebanon after the airing of comments by then information minister Georges Kordahi criticizing a Saudi-led military aggression on Yemen.
Kordahi described the Saudi-led war on Yemen as “futile” in an online show affiliated with Qatar’s Al Jazeera, adding that the Yemeni armed forces are successfully defending the state.
Kuwait recalled its ambassador from Beirut and also asked Beirut’s charge d’affaires to leave the emirate.
As Saudi pressure built on his country, Kordahi eventually announced his resignation in December 2021 and said he had decided to put Lebanon’s national interests above “personal” preferences.
Kordahi, a popular former Lebanese game show host, had made the critical remarks before being appointed as the information minister.
Saudi Arabia, backed by the U.S. and regional allies, launched the war on Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing the government of Yemen’s former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power and crushing the popular Ansarullah resistance movement.
The war has left hundreds of thousands of Yemenis dead and displaced millions more. It has also destroyed Yemen’s infrastructure and spread famine and infectious diseases there.
Despite heavily-armed Saudi Arabia’s continuous bombardment of the impoverished country, Yemeni armed forces and the Popular Committees have grown steadily in strength against the Saudi-led invaders and left Riyadh and its allies bogged down in the country.