Kuwait Calls on Lebanon Minister to Retract Feedback

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Kuwait’s overseas minister on Saturday criticised feedback made by Lebanon’s caretaker financial system minister Amin Salam concerning the rebuilding of a part of Beirut’s port, in a recent diplomatic disagreement between Lebanon and Gulf states.

Salam on Wednesday had urged Kuwait to rebuild Lebanon’s foremost wheat silos, which had been inbuilt 1969 with a grant from the Kuwait Fund for Arab Financial Improvement and gutted by the Beirut port blast of 2020.

Salam stated Kuwait might resolve to rebuilt the silos with “the stroke of a pen”.

Kuwaiti Overseas Minister Sheikh Salem Abdullah Al-Jaber Al-Sabah stated Salam’s feedback had been “incompatible” with political norms on how selections had been made and urged the Lebanese minister to retract them to guard bilateral ties.

Salam was quoted by Lebanese media on Saturday as saying his feedback had been referring to how shortly the choice might be taken, however that he meant no offense.

Lebanese-Gulf relations deteriorated in 2021 over feedback by Lebanon’s then-information minister concerning the Saudi-led navy intervention in Yemen.

On the time, Gulf international locations, together with Kuwait, withdrew their envoys to Lebanon. They returned in 2022.

Individually, Kuwait on Saturday urged its residents in Lebanon to remain vigilant following days of clashes in a Palestinian camp in southern Lebanon. In a press release later, caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati in a press release hours later sought to reassure the Gulf international locations their residents in Lebanon had been protected.

(Reporting by Maya Gebeily; Modifying by Frances Kerry)

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