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Beirut: Representatives from Lebanon and Israel began on Thursday a third session of technical discussions on the demarcation of maritime borders in southern Lebanon, under the auspices of the United Nations and US mediation.
Negotiations began in an opening session on 14 this month between two countries that are at war and aspire to share oil resources in regional waters, after years of mediation undertaken by Washington, which plays the role of mediator in the talks. .
“For the second day in a row, the third round of indirect negotiations to demarcate the maritime border has begun,” the official National News Agency reported on Thursday, amid tight security measures taken by the Lebanese army in the border city of Naqoura. .
The third session takes place the day after a meeting that lasted almost four hours in the presence of representatives of the United Nations and the American diplomat John DeRoucher, who is in charge of facilitating the negotiations between the two parties.
The sessions take place at a United Nations force southern Lebanon (UNIFIL) border post, away from the media and amid extreme secrecy.
A Lebanese source accompanying the negotiations, conservatively, only mentioned his name, telling Agence France-Presse that Wednesday’s session “was positive (…), and each delegation presented its proposals and demands to the other without to be able to give answers about them ”.
Lebanon insists on the purely technical nature of indirect talks aimed exclusively at demarcation of maritime borders, while Israel talks about direct negotiations.
In 2018, Lebanon signed the first contract to explore gas and oil in two areas of its territorial waters, one of which, known as Block No. 9, is in the part disputed with Israel. Consequently, Lebanon has no option to operate in this territory except after the borders are demarcated.
The National Agency reported on Thursday that the Lebanese delegation was carrying “maps and convincing documents showing points of dispute and the Israeli enemy’s violation of the Lebanese right to annex part of Block 9.”
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, according to Laurie Haitien, director of the Institute for the Governance of Natural Resources in the Middle East and North Africa, “from the beginning to demand the maximum that can be obtained under the roof of international law and the law of the sea. In other words, it wants to go beyond 860 square kilometers. “
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.
(AFP)
