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Jerusalem – The second round of Israeli-Lebanese negotiations on the border demarcation began on Wednesday, under the auspices of the United Nations and American mediation.
The Israeli Energy Ministry said that delegations from the two countries met again at the United Nations peacekeeping base “to assess the possibility of reaching an agreement on the demarcation of maritime borders … that allows the exploitation of natural resources in the region “.
The first round was held on the 14th of this month between the two countries, which consider themselves at war and aspire to share oil resources in regional waters, after years of mediation undertaken by Washington.
“Today’s session is the first technical meeting, after the first awareness session and during which the basic rules for the negotiation were established,” Laurie Haitien, director of the Institute for the Governance of Natural Resources, told AFP. Middle East and North Africa.
The National News Agency stated that the meeting had started and noted that “the Lebanese delegation carried maps and documents showing points of disagreement.
The session will be held at a border point of the United Nations Force in South Lebanon (UNIFIL) in the presence of representatives of the United Nations and the US diplomat John DeRoucher, who is in charge of facilitating negotiations between the two parties. . It will last two days.
Lebanon insists on the purely technical nature of indirect negotiations aimed exclusively at demarcation of borders, while Israel speaks of direct negotiations.
The negotiations concern a marine area that extends to about 860 square kilometers, according to a map sent in 2011 to the United Nations, and Lebanon later considered it based on erroneous estimates.
The Lebanese state begins negotiations, as Haitian explains, “from the beginning of demanding the maximum that can be obtained under the roof of international law and the law of the sea, that is, it wants to go beyond the 860 square kilometers, which it does part of the Karish gas field on the Lebanese side. ” .
It is not known what the Israeli position will be on this, especially since Karish is an open field and Israel was supposed to start production operations in it next year before there was a delay with the outbreak of the new Corona virus.
Lebanon begins the path of demarcation under difficult circumstances with accelerating economic collapse and US sanctions targeting Hezbollah and political officials from allied parties.
Haitian says Lebanon “wants to send a signal to Lebanese, Israeli and US negotiators not to sit at the negotiating table from a position of weakness” and thus “broaden the circle of its argument-based demands. legal “.
In 2016, Lebanon signed the first contract to explore for gas and oil in two areas of its territorial waters, one of which, known as Block No. 9, is in the disputed part with Israel. Consequently, Lebanon has no option to operate in this territory except after the borders are demarcated.
The two negotiating delegations hope that progress will be made in the negotiations within a reasonable period of time, which may take months.
Lebanon has always insisted in the past on linking the demarcation of maritime borders with land borders, but the negotiations will focus solely on maritime borders, provided that the demarcation of land borders is discussed, according to the United Nations, within the framework of the periodic tripartite meeting that has been held for years.
On the eve of the first negotiating session, Hezbollah, which is Israel’s arch enemy, and its ally Amal Movement, objected to the inclusion of the Lebanese delegation, led by Pilot Brigadier General Bassam Yassin, with civilian figures, considering this to be “in recognition of the Israeli logic that wants any form of normalization.”
From northern Israel, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said Tuesday, while inspecting the training on the army’s preparations for a possible Hezbollah attack, “I hear positive voices coming from Lebanon speaking about peace with Israel and they work with us on issues such as maritime borders. “
Gantz’s position came as a result of controversial statements by Claudine Aoun, daughter of Lebanese President Michel Aoun, in a television interview in which she said that she was not opposed to her country reaching a peace agreement with Israel, but ” after all problems are resolved. “
He listed among these problems “the problem of demarcation of the border, the problem of Palestinian refugees and another important issue is natural resources: water, oil and gas that we will rely on to advance our economy.”
