Riyadh Expels Lebanese Envoy over Yemen War Remarks
In a statement on Friday, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry gave 48 hours to the Lebanese envoy to leave the country. The ministry said it has also recalled its ambassador to Beirut for consultations.
In an interview, Lebanese Information Minister George Kordahi had said that Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah are defending their country “against an external aggression”, adding that the coalition is bombing “homes, villages, funerals, and weddings.”
Saudi officials have also announced a ban on import of Lebanese products to the country until further notice. Expressing regret over the deterioration in Riyadh-Beirut relations, the Saudi minister claimed that Lebanese officials are ignoring the facts and fail to take corrective measures for maintaining bilateral ties.
Saudi Arabia has ramped up pressure on Lebanon during recent days on the pretext of Kordahi’s remarks, however, observers believe that the pressures are coming in response to Beirut’s ties with Damascus and the Resistance Front, as well as its procurement of fuel from Iran.
The UAE, Bahrain, and Kuwait had also earlier summoned their envoys to Lebanon to protest Kordahi’s comments.
Saudi Arabia and some of its regional allies, backed by the US and other Western powers, have been waging a devastating war on Yemen since March 2015 to reinstall Yemen’s former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh, and eliminate the popular Ansarullah movement.
The Saudi war, which Riyadh had claimed would last only a few weeks, has failed to achieve its goals, but pushed Yemen to the brink of starvation and famine, killed tens of thousands of innocent people, and destroyed the impoverished state’s infrastructure. The United Nations has described the war on Yemen as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
