The Foreign Affairs Ministry summoned the Acting Lebanese Chargé d’Affaires in Bahrain Sami Haddad and handed over to him a protest memorandum regarding the statement delivered by the Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament Nabih Berri as he patronized a photo gallery held in Beirut.
The Foreign Ministry asserted that Berri’s statement contained false and baseless claims and allegations that represent “a provocative move and an unjustified blatant interference in the kingdom’s internal affairs.”
Speaking as he handed over the official protest note to the Acting Lebanese Chargé d’Affaires, the Foreign Ministry’s Under-secretary for Regional and GCC Affairs Ambassador Hamad Ahmed Abdulaziz Al Amer said that the Ministry was following up closely Berri’s patronage of the event and the provocative statement he made.
Al Amer expressed the Kingdom’s strong denunciation of the Lebanese senior officials’ participation in such events and the “irresponsible statements they made”, which, he said, poses a “threat to the sovereignty of a member of the Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council, in clear breach of the international law.”
He also noted that some Lebanese leaders’ tendency to support such policies against the Kingdom would harm the fraternal relations between Lebanon and Bahrain whose citizens appreciate their Lebanese counterparts and are committed to the principle of mutual respect, which will “create a tense atmosphere and jeopardize security and stability of GCC states whose security is integral.
Ambassador Al Amer requested the envoy to convey the Kingdom’s strong resentment over such “unfriendly” practices to the Lebanese Government and call upon it to assume its responsibilities, deal firmly with such irresponsible stances voiced by some leaders and distance itself from such issues, in line with the solid brotherly ties bonding the two countries, the Arab solidarity principle and the international law in order to safeguard regional security and stability.