Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah during a televised speech in July 2023. (Credit: screengrab/Al-Manar TV)
BEIRUT — Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said on Saturday evening that the departure of Sweden's ambassador to Lebanon, Ann Dismorr, following the desecration of a Quran in Sweden, was "important for the Lebanese people."
On Friday, a spokesperson for the Swedish Embassy in Beirut told L'Orient Today that the diplomat had left Lebanon for a "planned vacation."
The move came after Hezbollah's leader on Thursday called for demonstrations and the expulsion of the ambassador.
Responding to his call, hundreds of Hezbollah supporters gathered on Friday in the southern suburbs of Beirut and in the rest of the country to protest against the desecration of a Quran in Sweden, an incident condemned by the Lebanese authorities.
"After the positions taken yesterday [Friday] and the day before yesterday [Thursday], the appropriate contacts were made... As a result, the Swedish ambassador to Lebanon left the country," Nasrallah said in a speech Saturday evening to mark Ashoura, a religious event.
"Some say no one summoned her, others say the opposite. Whether she was spoken to or not, I'm not going to go into those details," he added.
Dismorr's departure "is important to us as Lebanese people, it's one of our demands as a people," Nasrallah insisted in his speech.
Meanwhile, Lebanon's ambassador to Sweden is "currently in Lebanon and will not be returning to Sweden for the time being," Nasrallah concluded."
Reached by L'Orient-Le Jour, the Foreign Affairs Ministry could not immediately confirm the whereabouts of Lebanon's ambassador to Sweden.
Caretaker Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib claimed in a statement on Sunday to have received a telephone call from his Swedish counterpart, Tobias Billström, in which the latter expressed his government's "condemnation of offensive acts against the Quran and insults to Islamic beliefs and symbols."
The Lebanese minister "welcomed this position and encouraged Sweden to take more practical steps at this level to put an end to the growing manifestations of hatred and Islamophobia in Sweden."
He also reaffirmed "Lebanon's respect and commitment to take all possible measures to ensure the security of Swedish interests and citizens on its territory, in accordance with the Vienna Convention governing diplomatic relations between states."