BEIRUT (Reuters) – Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem on Friday urged Saudi Arabia to turn “a new page” with the Iran-backed group and set aside past disputes to create a unified front against Israel, following years of hostility that strained Riyadh’s ties with Lebanon.
Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states designated Shi’ite Hezbollah a terrorist organisation in 2016. In recent months, Riyadh has joined Washington and Hezbollah’s rivals within Lebanon in pressuring the Lebanese government to disarm the group, which was badly weakened by last year’s war with Israel.
In a televised address on Friday, Qassem said that regional powers should see Israel, not Hezbollah, as the main threat to the Middle East and proposed “mending relations” with Riyadh.
“We assure you that the arms of the resistance (Hezbollah) are pointed at the Israeli enemy, not Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, or any other place or entity in the world,” Qassem said.
He said dialogue would “freeze the disagreements of the past, at least in this exceptional phase, so that we can confront Israel and curb it”, and said that pressuring Hezbollah “is a net gain for Israel.”
Saudi Arabia once spent billions in Lebanon, depositing funds in the central bank and helping rebuild the south after a 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel – only to see the group grow more powerful in Lebanon and the region with Iran’s help.
Relations soured sharply in 2021 when Sunni Saudi Arabia expelled the Lebanese ambassador, recalled its own envoy and banned Lebanese imports. A statement in Saudi state media at the time said Hezbollah controlled the Lebanese state’s decision-making processes.
Hezbollah’s then-secretary general Hassan Nasrallah called Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammad bin Salman a “terrorist” and repeatedly criticised Saudi’s role in Yemen.
But recent months have seen seismic political shifts in the region, with Israel pummelling Hezbollah last year and killing Nasrallah, and rebels toppling the group’s Syrian ally Bashar al-Assad in December.
(Reporting by Laila Bassam and Maya Gebeily; Writing by Enas Alashray; Editing by Alex Richardson, Aidan Lewis)
Comments