Lebanese premier looks to heal relations with Saudi Arabia

BEIRUT

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said Thursday his country will heal its “relationship with Saudi Arabia.”

"I placed President (Michel) Aoun in the atmosphere that surrounded my visit to the UN climate change summit being held in Glasgow, Scotland, and my meeting with various Arab and international parties," Mikati said at a news conference after meeting the Lebanese president.

Mikati said Lebanon "cannot be run in the language of defiance and arrogance, and whoever thinks that he is able to impose opinion by verbal escalation and take the Lebanese to choices far from its Arab history is making a big mistake."

He said Information Minister George Kordahi’s “remarks brought Lebanon into the prohibition of a boycott by Saudi Arabia and the Arab Gulf states” and he called on “the minister of information to take the position that preserves the interests of Lebanon and Lebanese people.”

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, and Bahrain recalled their ambassadors from Lebanon to protest 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 headed by Mikati.

Three former Lebanese prime ministers demanded Kordahi resign on Saturday to help resolve the diplomatic crisis with the Gulf nations.

Yemen has been engulfed by violence and instability since 2014, when Iranian-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.

*Writing by Bassel Barakat