Lebanon will offer no apology to Saudi Arabia: Hezbollah

A senior member of Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement has slammed the Saudi regime’s plot to plunge the country into an “internal strife,” saying Lebanon will not apologize for speaking the “word of truth.”

“Days will show that the Saudi regime made a miscalculated move in its fabricated attack against Lebanon ... especially when it assaulted the sovereignty of all Lebanese,” Sheikh Nabil Qaouk, deputy chief of Hezbollah’s executive council, said on Saturday.

He further reiterated that Hezbollah will not apologize to Saudi Arabia for speaking the “word of truth against the oppressor,” stressing that the regime “will have to wait for a long time [for an apology], as we will abide by the right to confront oppression, Takfiri projects and sedition.”

Ties between Riyadh and Beirut soured when Saudi Arabia retracted a $4-billion aid pledge to Lebanon’s security forces last week. The aid suspension came after Beirut did not follow Riyadh’s lead and refused to endorse joint anti-Iran statements at separate meetings held in Cairo and Jeddah.

On Friday, Saudi Arabia blacklisted four Lebanese firms and three individuals over alleged affiliation to Hezbollah, and imposed sanctions on them. The kingdom also ordered its citizens not to travel to Lebanon, and is poised to expel the Lebanese citizens working on its territory.

Riyadh has now demanded an apology from the Beirut government over its anti-Saudi stances.

Qaouk further said the Saudi authorities are in “despair” due to their failures in Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.

“It (Riyadh) is seeking to compensate its losses in the region by fabricating attacks on Lebanon, blackmailing and humiliating the Lebanese and pushing them to engage in internal strife,” the Hezbollah official said.

He underlined that his country “will not fall victim” to these campaigns and vowed that Hezbollah will remain victorious against what he described as the “enemies of resistance.”

Prime Minister Tammam Salam has called on all walks of people in Lebanon to stand united amid the Saudi pressures.

Several Lebanese ministers have likewise dismissed an apology.

“We committed no wrong for which to apologize,” Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mohammad Fneish said during a Thursday cabinet meeting.

Industry Minister Hussein Hajj Hassan also said, “I don’t understand this great equation: we either apologize or we must bear a collective punishment.”

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