BEIRUT: Iran cannot be compared to the “backward, ignorant and murderous” Saudi regime, Hezbollah declared Wednesday, in the latest of a bruising back-and-forth between the party and its Future Movement opponents sparked by the Yemen crisis.
Ignoring a recent plea by Speaker Nabih Berri for the rivals to tone down the rhetoric, Hezbollah said that the Future Movement’s defense of Riyadh suggests a support for "genocide."
“Future Movement leaders and officials, over the past few years, have waged violent attacks against the Islamic Republic of Iran, unleashing a spate of false accusations and unfounded slander, in the service of foreign and Arab agendas,” read a statement released by Hezbollah’s media office.
Hezbollah has not responded to the criticism of Iran in an effort to preserve internal cohesion, it added. Nonetheless, Hezbollah's criticism of Saudi Arabia and its intervention against Houthi rebels in Yemen has drawn a fiery rebuke from the Future Movement, the statement noted.
The Future Movement’s links to Saudi Arabia and its attempts to please and defend the kingdom will not silence Hezbollah from criticizing the Saudi-led “aggression” on Yemen and the “crimes” committed against its people, the party said.
“The Future Movement’s rhetoric suggests that the movement is in favor of genocide and crimes committed by [Saudi-led] airstrikes against innocent civilians.”
The language used by Future Movement officials and their media outlets in defense of Saudi Arabia also frames the kingdom as a benevolent entity when it is “founded on authoritarianism and intimidation.”
The Saudi regime also “rents” the conscious of states, exports armies and soldiers, and sows discord in an attempt to break up nations and kill innocent people, the unrelenting statement added.
“The backward, ignorant, murderous regime that exports terrorists, extremists and aberrant radical ideas... cannot be fairly compared to the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
The world has seen Iran progress and develop as a state and as a political system. The country and its leaders stand in the face of world oppression by supporting vulnerable populations and liberation movements, the statement concluded.
The statement came after Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Awad Asiri was quoted as telling Hezbollah that it had no business involving itself in Yemen.
“I see that Hezbollah’s intervention in Yemen and its support for the Houthis as reported by the media, and the usage of [Hezbollah’s] media in the ongoing war in Yemen, is unacceptable,” Asiri told As-Safir in remarks published Wednesday.
Hezbollah has called for a Friday rally in solidarity with Yemen in Beirut's southern suburbs, during which party chief Hasan Nasrallah is expected to reiterate his opposition to the intervention in a speech.
Hezbollah and Future members met for a 10th dialogue session Tuesday night, mediated by Berri, who has pleaded for the rivals to end their hostile back-and-forth.
The talks have continued despite simmering tensions exacerbated by the crisis in Yemen.
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