A top official of the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah calls on Riyadh to stop meddling in the country’s internal affairs amid a Lebanon-Saudi rift over comments on the Yemen war.
“Lebanon is an independent country that does not accept subordination to anyone,” al-Manar television network cited Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem as saying at a graduation ceremony on Wednesday, according to Press TV.
Referring to the current dispute with Saudi Arabia, the senior Hezbollah official stressed that it was Riyadh that started the problem with Beirut.
“We don’t have any demand from it (Saudi Arabia) but to stop interfering in our (Lebanon’s) internal affairs,” he stressed.
Sheikh Qassem on Sunday had said the real target of the Saudi diplomatic aggression on Lebanon “has been always Hezbollah as well as its military power."
Tensions rose between Riyadh and Beirut following critical comments made by Lebanese Information Minister George Kordahi regarding the Saudi-led war against Yemen.
On October 29, Saudi Arabia gave the Lebanese ambassador 48 hours to leave the country over Kordahi’s remarks. The kingdom also imposed a ban on all imports from Lebanon.
Elsewhere in his Wednesday remarks, Sheikh Qassem pointed to a last month’s deadly shootout in Beirut and noted that the resistance movement dealt wisely with the massacre which was committed by the Lebanese Forces (LF) political party in Beirut in mid October.
MNA/PR