“It is putting pressure on others at the Arab foreign ministers meeting to do the same”, he said during his address in the eastern city of Baalbek.
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The Arab League labelled Shiite Muslim Hizbollah a terrorist organisation on Friday, Egyptian state media said, as tensions rise between Sunni and Shiite powers across the Middle East.
The move aligns the 22-member organisation firmly behind Saudi Arabia and the bloc of six GCC states.
“In his speech [the minister] said that Hashd Shaabi and Hizbollah had preserved the dignity of the Arabs and those who call them terrorists are the terrorists”, an Iraqi foreign ministry source said.
Washington and allies including Saudi Arabia and Turkey back opposition groups representing political and armed factions in Syria’s civil war while Russian Federation and Iran support President Bashar Al-Assad.
In January, Bahrain said it had dismantled a “terror” cell allegedly linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah.
The Arab League and GCC decision to classify Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation bring them into line with the United States and the European Union – although the latter has only blacklisted the group’s military wing.
Last month, the Persian Gulf littoral state suspended $4 billion in aid to the Lebanese Army and police in response to stances taken by Lebanese officials.
Announcing the funding cut, a Saudi official said at the time that the kingdom noticed “hostile Lebanese positions resulting from the stranglehold of Hezbollah on the state ” .
After that announcement, Saudi Arabia urged its nationals to leave Lebanon and avoid traveling there, with Qatar and Kuwait later issuing similar advisories.
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The United Arab Emirates banned its citizens from travelling to Lebanon. “Through a resolution adopted on Friday by a vote of 14 in favour, with one abstention (Egypt), the Council specifically endorsed the decision of the Secretary-General to repatriate a particular military unit or formed police unit of a contingent when there is credible evidence of widespread or systemic sexual exploitation and abuse by that unit”.
