BEIRUT: The Saudi ambassador to Lebanon struck back at Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah Sunday, saying his anti-Saudi speech contained false allegations and reflected the state of confusion of his patron, Iran.
Ambassador Ali Awad Asiri’s strongly worded statement against Nasrallah underlined the widening rift between Saudi Arabia and Iran, exacerbated by last week’s Saudi-led military intervention against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. The Saudi-led campaign against Houthi targets has opened a new front in a long-simmering rivalry between the two regional powers.
Despite the new tension between the Future Movement and Hezbollah, Speaker Nabih Berri said the dialogue between the two rival influential parties would go on.
“The [Future-Hezbollah] dialogue has proven to be a national necessity. Therefore, it will go on,” Berri was quoted as saying by visitors at his Ain al-Tineh residence.
“The dialogue has achieved much in terms of stability in the country. The two sides have stressed the importance of the dialogue. That’s why it will go on,” he said.
Berri, according to visitors, said the next round of talks between the two sides would be held at Ain al-Tineh on April 2. He added that a meeting of the Union of Arab Parliaments would be held in Beirut at the end of April.
In a statement issued a day after he returned to Beirut from a short visit to Riyadh, Asiri said Nasrallah’s speech “reflected the confusion experienced by the side he represents [Iran], and contained a lot of slander and false allegations against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in addition to fallacies aimed at distorting facts and misleading public opinion.”
He accused Iran of scuttling Saudi attempts to promote a political settlement between the warring factions in Yemen.
Recalling the Saudi government’s efforts to help broker an inter-Yemeni political solution to end the conflict in Yemen and preserve the country’s unity and safety of its people, Asiri said: “The same side supporting Sayyed Nasrallah and directing the Houthis does not want good for Yemen and has been behind the obstruction of all agreements and pushing the security situation in the country toward escalation and deterioration.”
In a televised speech Friday, Nasrallah lambasted Saudi Arabia for spearheading a coalition of 10 countries to launch a military offensive against Yemen. He accused Riyadh of launching the war in a bid to regain control over the impoverished country. He also criticized Saudi Arabia for failing to carry out a similar military action to save the Palestinians in their struggle with Israel.
Nasrallah’s speech drew a quick rebuke from former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who dismissed it as “a storm of hatred against Saudi Arabia and Gulf states in response to the ‘Decisive Storm’ campaign against the Iranian infiltration in Yemen.”
Asiri also rebutted Nasrallah’s claim that Saudi Arabia, through an alleged veto put by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal on MP Michel Aoun’s presidential bid, was blocking the election of a Lebanese president.
“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has proven that it does not speak two languages,” Asiri said. “Its officials have announced several times that the Lebanese presidency is a purely Lebanese affair and that it [Saudi Arabia] does not engage in the game of names of candidates, but rather supports whoever is agreed upon by the Lebanese.”
The Saudi envoy said Nasrallah blaming Prince Saud for the presidential crisis was aimed at “evading responsibility for the obstruction of the presidential election for which the Lebanese blame Hezbollah and its allies and the regional sides that support them.”
Lebanon has been without a president for more than 10 months after Parliament has failed, due to a lack of quorum since April, to choose a successor to former President Michel Sleiman, whose six-term mandate ended on May 25.
Asiri rejected Nasrallah’s accusations that Saudi Arabia had failed to come to the rescue of the Palestinians reeling under Israeli occupation.
“Neither Sayyed Nasrallah, nor any other side can outdo the Kingdom in the various kinds of support it has extended to the brotherly Palestinian people over tens of years,” he said. He implicitly accused Iran of splitting Palestinian factions and playing them off against each other.
“The kingdom’s stances are clear and honest and do not need a certificate from anyone,” Asiri said. “We wish some sides would emulate the wisdom of the kingdom’s leaders and their keenness on the Arab and Islamic nations and their support for the Arab and Islamic causes instead of seeking to undermine Arab unity and mislead the peoples.”
Despite the tension with Saudi Arabia over the Yemeni conflict, Hezbollah’s deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem vowed to pursue the three-month-old dialogue with the Future Movement.
“We have chosen the dialogue between Hezbollah and the Future Movement despite those obstructing it because it is the path to preserve stability, spare Lebanon strife and help defuse [sectarian] tensions,” Qassem said at a Hezbollah ceremony in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
“We know that dialogue cannot succeed unless the two parties want it. This is what is happening,” he said.
He added that “some voices’ in the Future Movement which have “become known” are against the progress of the dialogue.
“We tell those: In spite of your anger, we will continue the dialogue even if you don’t like it. We will continue with every action that leads to stability. God willing, we will not let you undermine stability in Lebanon,” Qassem said.
For his part, Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdel-Latif Derian voiced support for the Future-Hezbollah dialogue, saying that it has reduced sectarian tensions. He said the Future-Hezbollah talks should be complemented with an inter-Christian dialogue.
“We support dialogues that lead to positive results to preserve this country’s stability, unity, security and the peace of its citizens,” Derian said at the opening of a mosque in the town of Shehim in Iqlim al-Kharroub.
“Yes, let the Future Movement engage in a dialogue with Hezbollah. It is forbidden for this dialogue to stop,” he said. “We are counting much on this dialogue, but at the same time we expect quickly from this dialogue a lot of understanding that can ease Lebanon’s crises.”
Derian added that the Future-Hezbollah dialogue has produced “positive results” with regard to eliminating sectarian tensions in the country.
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