Kuwait's foreign minister Shaikh Ahmad Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah visited Beirut on Saturday in the first trip by a senior Gulf official since a diplomatic rift last year. Long strained by the influence of the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah, Lebanon's ties with Gulf Arab states were plunged into a new crisis in October by comments from a former Lebanese minister criticizing Arab Coalition in Yemen. Kuwait was one of several members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), including Saudi Arabia, that responded to George Kordahi's remarks by expelling the Lebanese ambassador and recalling its envoy to Beirut. Speaking after meeting Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, Shaikh Ahmad Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah said ties with Beirut had not been severed and relations were now in a phase of confidence-building measures. He said he had delivered proposed confidence-building steps to Mikati and the Lebanese foreign minister and "the brothers in Lebanon should study them and know how to deal with these matters". "All the GCC states are sympathetic and in solidarity with the Lebanese people ... the Kuwaiti move is a Gulf move," Shaikh Ahmad said. The diplomatic rift added to the difficulties facing Lebanon as it struggles with a financial crisis that the World Bank has described as one of the sharpest depressions ever recorded. Shaikh Ahmad said the visit was "to support Lebanon and bring Lebanon out of all that it is going through, to help it overcome these difficulties, and to restore, God willing, the measures to build confidence with Lebanon". The GCC called on Lebanon in December to prevent Hezbollah from conducting "terrorist operations", strengthen its military and ensure that arms were limited to state institutions. — Agencies
