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by alaraby.co.uk Egypt’s president has urged for calm in the region as tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran flare, saying it is not the right time to challenge Lebanese Shia group Hizballah. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi made the appeal in an interview with CNBC over the weekend that aired on Tuesday morning. “The stability of the region is very important and we all have to protect it… I am talking to all the parties in the region to preserve it,” Sisi said. When asked whether it was time to challenge Hizballah, Sisi said: “It’s not about taking on or not taking on, it’s about the status of the fragile stability in the region in light of the unrest.” The Egyptian president’s remarks come as Saudi Arabia said that Lebanon had declared war against the kingdom. “We will treat the government of Lebanon as a government declaring war on Saudi Arabia due to the aggression of Hizballah,” Saudi Gulf affairs minister Thamer al-Sabhan told Al Arabiya TV on Monday He added that Saad al-Hariri, who announced his resignation as Lebanon’s prime minister on Saturday from Riyadh, would not accept the positions of Iran-backed Hizballah. Saudi Arabia and Iran traded fierce accusations over Yemen on Monday as Riyadh said a rebel missile attack “may amount to an act of war” and Tehran accused its rival of war crimes. Tensions have been rising between Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia and predominantly Shia Iran, which back opposing sides in wars and power struggles from Yemen to Syria. Relations between Cairo and Riyadh – traditional allies – have warmed recently following a notable downturn last year when Saudi Arabia abruptly suspended oil aid to Egypt just days after Cairo backed a UN Security Council resolution on Syria drafted by Bashar al-Assad’s ally Russia. Egypt is a key member of the Saudi-led bloc that in June severed diplomatic and economic ties with Qatar, accusing it of supporting “terrorists” and being too close to Iran. However, Egypt has been reluctant to contribute militarily to the Saudi-led coalition in the war in Yemen and take sides in the civil war in Syria.
Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud meets with former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia November 6, 2017. (Reuters Photo)
Riyadh to treat Lebanese government as declaring war on Saudi Arabia
by By Habib Toumi, Bureau Chief – Gulfnews.com/Manama: Riyadh will never accept to see Lebanon involved in a war on Saudi Arabia, the Saudi State Minister for Arabian Gulf Affairs has said. “We will treat the government of Lebanon as a government declaring war because of Hezbollah militias,” Thamer Al Sabhan said. “The Hezbollah militias affect all decisions taken by the Lebanese government,” he told Al Arabiya Television late on Monday. Al Sabhan added that King Salman Bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud had informed Lebanon’s outgoing Prime Minister Saad Hariri of the details of Hezbollah’s aggression against Saudi Arabia, pointing out that the Lebanese government should be aware of the dangers of these militias against his country. “Hezbollah militias are involved in every terrorist act threatening Saudi Arabia,” Al Sabhan said.
“Saudi Arabia will use all political and other means to confront the ‘Party of Satan’.” The Lebanese must choose either peace or inclusion under Hezbollah, he added. “We expected the Lebanese government to act and deter Hezbollah,” he said, noting that it was up to the Lebanese to determine what would happen with Saudi Arabia. In his statement to the pan-Arab station, Al Sabhan accused Hezbollah of smuggling drugs into Saudi Arabia and of training Saudi youth on terrorism. “Hariri and noble Lebanese will not accept the stances of Hezbollah,” he said, stressing that claims that Hariri was forced to resign were mere lies distract the attention of the Lebanese people. “Lebanon had been hijacked by Iran-backed Hezbollah militias,” Al Sabhan said, On his Twitter account, the Saudi minister posted that “Lebanon following the resignation will never be the same as it was before,” “We will not accept that Lebanon is in any way a platform for the launching of terrorism towards our countries. It is up to its leaders to choose whether it is a state of terrorism or a state of peace,” he said to his 410,000 followers on the microblogging site. Hariri resigned on Saturday.
Lebanese PM Hariri visits UAE from Saudi Arabia
By Bassem Mroue | AP BEIRUT — In a new twist in the saga of Lebanon’s prime minister who resigned over the weekend from Saudi Arabia, Saad Hariri’s office said he visited the United Arab Emirates briefly on Tuesday for a meeting with a top official before returning to the kingdom. Much is unknown about Hariri’s unexpected resignation, which stunned the Lebanese, threw its government into disarray and prompted a frenzy of speculation. One of the rumors is that Hariri has been under house arrest in Saudi Arabia, or in some way forced to do the Saudis’ bidding. His brief visit to the UAE could appear to dispel that, except that the Gulf federation is a close Saudi ally — the two countries have been spearheading a war in Yemen since 2015 against the country’s Shiite rebels who are backed by Iran. Abu Dhabi’s powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nayhan met Hariri and tweeted a photo, saying they discussed “brotherly ties” and the situation in Lebanon, without elaborating. Hariri’s office also said the two discussed the situation in Lebanon.
What Lebanon loses
The resignation has shattered a shaky consensus over the past year that had seen Lebanon regain a semblance of political normality. A two-and-a-half-year deadlock over the Lebanese presidency ended in October 2016 when Hariri finally agreed to nominate Hezbollah’s candidate, Michel Aoun, a Maronite Christian (as all Lebanese presidents are required to be). In return, Hariri won the premiership and a government was formed within a month.
Since then, the government and parliament were able to adopt a new electoral law for parliamentary polls scheduled for May 2018, which will be the first since 2009. A state budget was agreed upon, the first for 12 years, and legislation was passed that revived long-stalled moves to explore for oil and gas in Lebanon’s offshore waters.
In July and August, separate offensives by Hezbollah and the Lebanese army drove out several hundred militants belonging to the Islamic State and other groups from a pocket of northeast Lebanon, which has allowed the state to bring stability back to an area that had been lawless since 2014.
Hariri took some flak from his support base within the Sunni community for his cooperation with Hezbollah, which holds two seats in the government. Although Hariri is politically opposed to Hezbollah, he repeatedly stated that his actions were for the benefit of stability in Lebanon and that confronting the powerful Shiite group would only cause strife. And that is what makes his surprise, and fiery-worded, resignation Saturday all the more surprising.
A senior source in Hariri’s Future Movement justifies the resignation by saying that Hezbollah had never shown the same willingness to compromise as shown by the prime minister, the alleged assassination plot being the final straw. The source cites Hezbollah’s interventions in Syria and Iraq and its efforts to normalize relations with Mr. Assad’s regime, against Hariri’s wishes, and criticism of Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia.
“Hezbollah never ceased to attack Lebanon’s interests in having good relations with Saudi Arabia, the UAE [United Arab Emirates], Kuwait and the region; never ceased to put Lebanon in harm’s way by putting it at odds with the international community, with the Americans, with Lebanon’s friends; never ceased for one second,” says the source, requesting anonymity in order to speak frankly.
Hezbollah responds
Sunday evening, Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah called for “calm and patience” while apparently absolving Hariri of blame for the resignation, pinning it squarely on Saudi Arabia instead.
“We will not comment on the political content [of Hariri’s resignation speech], which was very tough and included many dangerous points, but we will not comment because we believe it was a Saudi text and a Saudi statement,” Mr. Nasrallah said in a televised speech.
The non-combative tone of Nasrallah’s speech may help ease worries of street clashes between rival supporters of Hezbollah and Hariri and suggests that the Iran-backed party does not seek an escalation over the crisis.
“Hezbollah doesn’t intend to become more confrontational with the Saudis than it already is,” says Ali Rizk, a Lebanese political analyst close to Hezbollah. “They have more than one thing to keep them preoccupied – you have Yemen, you have Syria, you have the Israeli threats … so I don’t think they want to deteriorate the local internal situation.”
But in what some in the region interpreted as a response to Hariri’s resignation and his harsh rhetoric against Iran, a ballistic missile was launched toward Riyadh Saturday evening from Houthi rebel territory in Yemen. The missile was intercepted by a Saudi anti-missile system close to the city’s King Khaled airport, causing alarm but no casualties.
Saudi Arabia initially blamed Iran for the attack, prompting the Iranian Foreign Ministry to describe the Saudi accusation as “unjust, irresponsible, destructive, and provocative.” Monday the Saudis went a step further, saying Hezbollah operatives in Yemen had fired the missile in collusion with the Iranians.
Hezbollah’s ‘war’
As part of the heightened Saudi rhetoric of late, Thamer al-Sabhan, the Saudi minister for Gulf Affairs who has been particularly vocal in lambasting Iran and Hezbollah via Twitter, criticized the Lebanese government on October 29 for its “silence” on what he called Hezbollah’s “war” against Saudi Arabia. The next day, he doubled down on his rhetoric, saying that Hezbollah must be toppled and that the “coming developments will definitely be astonishing.”
On Oct. 31, Hariri travelled to Riyadh, where he met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Mr. Sabhan. Although details of the meetings were not revealed, Hariri returned to Beirut amid reports that he had persuaded the Saudi leadership to grant him more flexibility in dealing with Hezbollah.
On Friday, Hariri met in Beirut with Ali Akbar Velayati, Iran’s senior adviser on international affairs. Mr. Velayati noted his “good, positive and constructive” conversation with the Lebanese premier, adding “Iranian-Lebanese relations are always constructive and Iran always supports and protects Lebanese independence, force, and government.” Perhaps that comment stung the Saudi leadership, because within hours, Hariri was back in Riyadh on an unscheduled visit, and the next morning he delivered his shock resignation.
On Monday, Sabhan released another, ominous, tweet, saying “Lebanon, after the resignation, will never be as it was before.”
“We will not allow it – in any form – to be a platform for terrorism against our countries,” he wrote, “and it’s in the hands of [Lebanese] leaders to allow for a state of terrorism or peace.”
