Naharnet,

Prime Minister Tammam Salam and the Lebanese delegation
attended the Arab League summit in the Mauritanian capital on Monday but
were not expected to spend the night there, the Associated Press
reported on Monday, shortly after Health Minister Wael Abu Faour
questioned the impoverished African nation’s ability to host top
delegations.

The comments by Abu Faour on a local TV show triggered a
spat between Lebanon and Mauritania, where Lebanese officials were
attacked by journalists and on social media.

“They don’t have the infrastructure and it’s miserable,”
said Abu Faour. “The summit will be held inside a tent,” he added,
apparently comparing it to previous summits that were held in five-star
hotels or luxury conference centers.

The minister later clarified on TV that his statements
were not meant against the people of Mauritania and said he got his
information from a Lebanese delegation that went to inspect where the
summit will be held and where the official delegations will be staying.

He told al-Jadeed TV that the Lebanese delegation will
fly to Morocco and spend the night there, then fly to attend the summit,
leaving the same day without sleeping in Nouakchott.

The Arab League Summit chaired by Mauritanian President
Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz opened inside a large tent in Nouakchott on
Monday.

But Abu Faour’s statements angered Lebanese living in
Mauritania who poked fun at their government and politicians, citing a
months-long trash crisis that hit Lebanon over that past year and led to
piles of uncollected trash building up in Beirut and its suburbs.

Prominent Palestinian journalist Abdul-Bari Atwan
criticized Lebanese politicians in a column he wrote in his online Rai
al-Youm newspaper.

“We don’t understand the arrogance by leaders who claim
they are Arabs, toward a country like Mauritania whose only guilt is
that it is a poor country that does not have oil or gold,” Atwan wrote.

Mauritanian journalist Naji Mohammed al-Imam wrote in
the daily al-Wahdawi that Abu Faour “lives amid mountains of trash” and
described Salam as a prime minister “by coincidence.”