Meeting at a Saudi military base outside Hafr Al-Batin near the Saudi border with Iraq, Kerry held talks with Saudi King Salman, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef, Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman and Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir.
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The Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (PGCC) and the Arab Interior Ministers separately designated Hezbollah as a “terrorist organization” last week. His speech hailing Hezbollah and Shiite militias as “resistant movements prompted the Saudi delegation to storm out of the league meeting”.
It comes a month after Riyadh cut ties with Tehran following demonstrations in which its embassy and a consulate were torched, in the wake of the Saudi execution of a prominent Shiite cleric.
“The resolution of the League’s council [of foreign ministers] includes the designation of Hezbollah as a terrorist group”, the statement read. It also sent a strategic message to Iran, and extremist Sunni groups like al-Qaida and the Islamic State group.
They also denounce its alliance with the Syrian regime and Hezbollah while support rebels who have been fighting since 2011 to topple the Damascus government and President Bashar al-Assad. “Hezbollah enjoys wide representation in Lebanon and it is a main component in the country”.
The Saudi monarch, for his part underlined the strategic importance for Egypt and hailed Egypt’s stances in defending Arab causes, said the spokesman. He said Lebanon asked that the word “terrorist” be struck from the records of the meeting as if did not happen.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards created Hezbollah (Party of God) in the 1980s.
Iraq and lebanon expressed reservations about the decision and Iraqi FM later attacked the decision and defended Hezbollah.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met King Salman and other senior Saudi officials on Friday for talks expected to focus on the war in Syria, according to a U.S. pool reporter accompanying Kerry.
“Who gives Saudi Arabia the right to punish Lebanon and its army and Lebanese people living in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf just because Hezbollah is speaking out?”
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The group is also accused of aiding Shiite minorities to revolt against regimes in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
