by AFP — BEIRUT: Lebanon Tuesday made a new offer to a visiting US mediator over a maritime border deal with Israel, holding back on demands for territory where Israel plans to imminently extract gas, an official said. Beirut’s proposal however included a claim for all of a separate field that it had initially only sought part of, the official close to the negotiations said. The new offer was made during meetings between Lebanon’s top leaders and US envoy Amos Hochstein, who landed in Beirut on Monday to relaunch indirect negotiations between Lebanon and Israel after a year-long pause. Lebanese authorities last week had requested Hochstein visit after a gas production vessel arrived in Israel to launch extraction operations in the Karish offshore field, drawing condemnation from Lebanon, which had laid claim to parts of it.
But in meetings Tuesday with Hochstein, Lebanon’s top leaders pushed for the country’s maritime border to exclude Karish and include the whole of the nearby Qana field instead, the official close to the negotiations told AFP. “We want the entire Qana field,” the official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the issue. Lebanon had initially demanded 860 square kilometers (330 square miles) of territory in the disputed maritime area, including part of Qana. It then asked for an additional 1,430 square kilometers, also taking in part of Karish.
In Tuesday’s offer, Lebanon “proposed increasing its initial demand for 860 square kilometers… to about 1,200 square kilometers,” the official said, taking in all of Qana but none of Karish. Hochstein will submit the new offer to Israel then relay its response to Lebanon. President Michel Aoun urged the US envoy to proceed swiftly following Tuesday’s meeting. Lebanon and Israel last fought a war in 2006, have no diplomatic relations and are separated by a UN-patrolled border. They had resumed negotiations over their maritime frontier in 2020 but the process was stalled by Beirut’s claim that the map used by the United Nations in the talks needed modifying.
Hochstein says Lebanese proposals ‘will enable negotiations to go forward’
by naharnet — U.S. energy mediator Amos Hochstein has confirmed that what he heard from Lebanese officials in his meetings with them on Tuesday will enable the sea border negotiations with Israel to “go forward.” “The good news is that I heard a lot more unanimity, a lot more unity of message (and) serious preparation for the visit,” Hochstein said in an interview with al-Hurra TV. “They shared some ideas of how to continue the negotiations, the basis for which to continue the negotiations and to take it a step forward,” he added.
Hochstein also noted that he sensed a “clear understanding” that the economic crisis in Lebanon “needs to be solved,” adding that “resolving the maritime dispute is really a critical and important step to resolving this economic crisis and to beginning the pathway towards recovery and growth.” “Therefore, this was a very serious attempt to look at options of moving forward with the idea that we need to be in a position of compromise and creative thinking,” the U.S. envoy went on to say.
Asked whether he presented any new suggestions to Lebanese officials, Hochstein said he visited Lebanon to listen to the reaction to the “proposals and points” he had raised in his previous visit to Lebanon. As for Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil’s so-called “Karish for Qana” equation, the U.S. envoy said: “I think the Lebanese government has taken a very strong step forward today by presenting a more united approach… I don’t think it’s about slogans, it’s about what kind of compromise can we reach that the Israelis can agree to and not feel that it is being pushed into something against their interest, while still preserving the most important part of Lebanon’s interests.” “It’s not about one formula or another, it’s about what works,” Hochstein clarified. SourceNaharnet
