Lebanon s foreign minister resigns after TV interview During a televised interview, Charbel Wehbe drew a link between the wealthy Gulf states and the rise of the Islamic State. Lebanese Foreign Minister Charbel Wehbe (R) welcomes Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (L), while mask-clad due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, at Lebanon s Foreign Ministry headquarters in the capital Beirut Aug. 14, 2020. - ANWAR AMRO/AFP via Getty Images
May 20, 2021
Lebanese Defense Minister Zeina Akar was named acting foreign minister on Wednesday after Lebanon‘s former top diplomat resigned over incendiary comments he made about Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region’s role in the rise of the Islamic State.
LEBANESE Foreign Minister Charbel Wehbe (right)) presenting his resignation to President Michel Aoun at the Baabda presidential palace. AFP
BEIRUT: Lebanon foreign minister Charbel Wehbe stepped down on Wednesday and was swiftly replaced after comments he made irked Saudi Arabia, as cash-strapped Beirut scrambles to avoid a diplomatic fallout with the wealthy Gulf state.
Wehbe said in a televised debate on Monday that the Islamic State (IS) group’s rise in the region had been engineered by Gulf states, prompting Lebanese ambassadors in several countries to be summoned.
Lebanon’s leaders have since tried to put out the fire and the 67-year-old announced in a brief statement after meeting President Michel Aoun that he had asked “to be relieved of his duties”.
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May 19, 2021 Share
BEIRUT Lebanon’s acting foreign minister stepped down on Wednesday amid a diplomatic row with Gulf Arab countries after he suggested in a TV interview this week that they had provided backing to extremists, helping the rise of the Islamic State group.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait summoned Lebanese ambassadors in their capitals to protest Charbel Wehbe’s remarks during an interview with Alhurra news channel. They accuse Wehbe of violating diplomatic norms and making derogatory and racist statements.
In the interview late Monday, Wehbe said that “friendship and brotherhood countries” brought Islamic State militants to Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. When asked if he meant that Gulf countries financed IS, he retorted sharply: “Financed by me then?”
The Middle East is a region where one can never say that things cannot get worse, simply because they always can and will. As the region was already overloaded with dangerous geopolitical files and disastrous humanitarian conditions, things indeed got worse and the international community’s attention has now shifted again and focused mainly on the terrible situation in Gaza.