Lebanon's government cannot afford to resign over a growing diplomatic crisis with Saudi Arabia and some Gulf states, a member of a Lebanese crisis group of ministers said on Saturday following a near three-hour meeting over the widening rift.
BEIRUT -Lebanon's president said on Saturday he wants the best relations with Saudi Arabia, looking to heal a rift with the kingdom after it expelled Beirut's envoy and banned Lebanese imports in a diplomatic spat that risks adding to Lebanon's economic crisis.
Following a near three-hour ministerial crisis meeting on Saturday, Education Minister Abbas Halabi said the government could not afford to resign over the diplomatic dispute. Kordahi's resignation would have knock-on effects that could threaten Prime Minister Najib Mikati's coalition government, tasked with addressing a financial crisis dubbed by the World Bank as one of the worst in modern history.
Richard Michaels, deputy head of the U.S. mission in Lebanon, had joined the crisis meeting in Beirut, a U.S. Embassy spokesperson said, declining to comment further.Kordahi has been publicly backed by the Iran-backed Hezbollah armed group and has declined to apologise or resign over the comments, which have dealt the worst blow to Saudi-Lebanese relations since Saad al-Hariri's 2017 detention in Riyadh.
Fouad Seniora, Hariri and Tammam Sallam, some of the country's top pro-Saudi politicians, said in the statement that Kordahi's remarks "harmed Lebanon's supreme national interest". Mikati has been hoping to improve ties with Gulf Arab states strained for years because of the influence wielded in Beirut by Hezbollah.
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