Saudi Arabia denies diplomatic crisis with Lebanon

ISTANBUL (AA) – Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan has denied that his country has a diplomatic crisis with Lebanon, saying Riyadh sees any engagement with Beirut not “productive”.

“I don’t think I would call it a crisis,” the top diplomat told CNBC during an interview on Tuesday.

But “we have come to the conclusion that dealing with Lebanon and its current government is not productive and not helpful,” he added.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, and Bahrain recalled their ambassadors from Lebanon in protest of Lebanese Information Minister George Kordahi's critical comments of the Saudi military campaign in Yemen in a televised interview said to be recorded before he took his post in the new Cabinet of Prime Minister Najib Mikati.

Asked if he "thinks that the Houthis, like Hezbollah, are defending their land as an armed organization," Kordahi responded: "Of course they are defending themselves ... My personal opinion is that this war in Yemen needs to end. Houses, buildings, villages, and cities are being attacked by fighter jets."

Bin Farhan said Kordahi’s comments represented “a symptom of a reality, a reality that the political scene in Lebanon continues to be dominated by Hezbollah, a terrorist group, a group that by the way, arms and supplies and trains that Houthi militia.”

Yemen has been engulfed by violence and instability since 2014, when Iran-aligned Houthi rebels captured much of the country, including the capital, Sanaa. A Saudi-led coalition aimed at reinstating the Yemeni government has worsened the situation and caused one of the world’s worst man-made humanitarian crises.

The Saudi minister criticized the Lebanese government’s “reluctance … to enact the necessary reforms, the necessary actions to push Lebanon in the direction of real change.”