Qardahi: I do not want my resignation to be as fruitless as Lebanon.
Lebanese Information Minister George Qardahi, who is under intense pressure to resign, said he does not insist on remaining in the ministry and welcomes anything that is in Lebanon’s interest.
In an interview with the Lebanese network MTV, he stated about the pressures of some parties to resign that he does not want his resignation to be “like an arrow that will not lead to any results”.
“Opinions about my resignation have been divided into pros and cons, and this issue has become too big,” the Lebanese information minister, who has so far resisted pressure to resign and even said last Friday, said last night: I understand the concerns of the Lebanese people. “I do not throw stones and I do not cling to the ministry because it is not my personal property or my home.”
Qardahi stressed that he welcomes any solution that is in Lebanon’s interest and restores its relations with the countries of the Persian Gulf.
“I will not challenge anyone, not the prime minister and “I do not respect Saudi Arabia.”
The remarks come as the Lebanese prime minister implicitly asked the country’s information minister to announce his resignation following pressure from Saudi Arabia.
“I reiterate my request to the Minister of Information and ask him to judge his conscience, assess the situation, take the position to be taken, and prioritize national interests over populist slogans,” he said.
However, an hour after the remarks, George Qardahi reiterated his previous position and said he would not resign.
The recent tensions between Lebanon and the Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia, began when Lebanese Information Minister George Qardahi called for an end to the war against Yemen in a televised interview prior to his appointment.
Asked how he assessed the current developments in Yemen, Qardahi said, “The brutal aggression against Yemen, which has been going on for eight years, must stop. “What the Yemenis are doing is their legal right to defend themselves, and I respect the resilience of the Yemeni people in the face of this aggression.”
Following these remarks, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates each recalled their ambassadors from Lebanon, and Kuwait, in a similar move, recalled its ambassador to Lebanon and gave the Lebanese embassy charge d’affaires 48 hours to leave the country.
The Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the decision was taken due to continuing negative statements against Saudi Arabia and “failure to take appropriate measures to prevent smuggling into the Cooperation Council member states.”
According to most political observers and analysts, Riyadh has used the former Lebanese minister’s remarks as an excuse to create a crisis against Beirut in order to strike at the Lebanese government. Even a Zionist think tank called the Israel Ethnic Security Research Center affiliated with Tel Aviv University acknowledged in a study that Saudi Arabia had criticized Minister Qardahi for “creating a crisis aimed at striking Hezbollah and the new government headed by Najib Mikati.” “”, has been abused.
Reaffirming that it is doubtful that Qardahi’s resignation will lead to an end to the crisis, the study goes on to say that Saudi Arabia failed after all its previous efforts to consolidate its dominance through the Sunni camp in Lebanon. He used his latest weapon, the Lebanese economy, to launch a “dangerous gamble.”
