BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Parliament speaker told a senior US diplomat on Friday that his country rejects current American proposals over the disputed marine border with Israel.
Nabih Berri made the statement after meeting acting Assistant US Secretary of State David Satterfield to discuss the offshore oil-rich Block 9.
But Lebanon appeared to have returned to its hard line over the proposal made in 2013 by a US diplomat that would give Lebanon around two thirds and Israel around one-third of the triangular area of around 860 square km.
“What is proposed is unacceptable,” Berri said, referring to the Frederick Hof naval line.
When asked about what was raised in the meeting, Ali Hamdan, an advisor to Berri, told Arab News: “We prefer to remain silent about the ideas put forward. Hof plan is unacceptable.”
Satterfield later visited Prime Minister Saad Hariri and held another meeting with Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil.
Lebanese Foreign Ministry sources told Arab News that “what is being said about a US proposal to share the disputed block is inaccurate, and the issue is far more complicated.” The sources added that “the American side is trying to crystallize a new proposal regarding the area in which Israel claims to have rights.”
The source said that as well as rejecting the Hof line Lebanon still adheres to its claim to all the sovereign, oil and gas rights of the area, but said the government was keeping an “open mind” to the US ideas being worked on.
The US company Noble Energy discovered in 2009 large oil and gas reserves in the eastern basin of the Mediterranean in the territorial waters of Syria, Lebanon, Cyprus and Israel. The area was divided into blocks.
Block 9 is located in the south and its next to the border of the Israeli territorial waters.
Lebanon sent documents and maps proving its ownership of the area to the UN but Israel continued to dispute the boundary.
In Dec. 2017, Lebanon granted licenses for the exploration of oil in Blocks 4 and 9 for the French company Total, Italian ENI, and the Russian Novatek.
This angered Israel due to the sensitivity of the location of this block.
In 2012, Frederick Hof pledged that the US administration would convince Israel of the temporary solution that would not hinder the interest of the Israeli and Lebanese sides in starting to explore their gas and oil resources.
In 2013, the US sent US Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Amos Hochstein to Lebanon to try to work out a formula for a compromise.
Hochstein proposed drawing a provisional blue maritime line keeping the disputed area along this line from the Lebanese and Israeli sides outside the exploration operations until a final demarcation agreement is reached.
In the meantime, investment in other undisputed areas could start within the context of the mutually agreed Blue Line understanding.
Hof gave another American proposal offering Lebanon 500 square km and Israel 360 square km. Lebanon agreed to take the 500 square km but refused to give up the 360 square km to Israel.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said on Thursday that the US must accept Lebanon’s demands over the border disputes with Israel and vowed it was ready to act against Israel if necessary, Reuters reported.
“The state must have a strong and firm position,” the leader of the Iran-backed movement said.
Satterfield had arrived in Beirut as part of the delegation traveling with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on his regional tour. But the diplomat stayed on after Tillerson left to work on a resolution to the dispute.
Satterfield, a former ambassador to Lebanon, was expected to travel to Israel for further talks.
Official sources told Arab News that Satterfield may return to Lebanon a second time after visiting Israel “if he carries constructive proposals.”
Lebanon speaker: US proposal on Lebanon-Israel disputed waters “unacceptable”
Lebanon speaker: US proposal on Lebanon-Israel disputed waters “unacceptable”
US, France, Germany, UK urge ‘de-escalation’ in Syria: joint statement
WASHINGTON: The United States and its allies France, Germany and Britain called Sunday for “de-escalation” in Syria and urged in a joint statement for the protection of civilians and infrastructure.
“The current escalation only underscores the urgent need for a Syrian-led political solution to the conflict, in line with UNSCR 2254,” read a statement issued by the US State Department, referencing the 2015 UN resolution that endorsed a peace process in Syria.
Britain ups Gaza aid ahead of donor conference
- Aid organizations accuse Israel of preventing trucks from entering Gaza in large enough numbers to alleviate a humanitarian crisis in the war-torn territory
LONDON: Britain will provide an additional 19 million pounds ($24 million) in humanitarian aid to Gaza, the international development minister said Monday, calling for Israel to give greater access ahead of a key conference on the conflict.
“Gazans are in desperate need of food, and shelter with the onset of winter,” the minister, Anneliese Dodds, said in a statement as she headed for a three-day visit to the region, including an international conference in Cairo Monday on the Gaza Strip’s aid needs.
“The Cairo conference will be an opportunity to get leading voices in one room and put forward real-world solutions to the humanitarian crisis,” she added.
“Israel must immediately act to ensure unimpeded aid access to Gaza.”
Aid organizations accuse Israel of preventing trucks from entering Gaza in large enough numbers to alleviate a humanitarian crisis in the war-torn territory.
The new UK funding will be split into 12 million pounds for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the World Food Programme (WFP), and seven million pounds for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), the statement said.
UNRWA announced Sunday it had halted the delivery of aid through the key Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza because of safety fears, saying the situation had become “impossible.”
Britain has committed to spending a total of 99 million pounds this year in humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territories, the government said.
After Dodds’s Cairo stop, the minister is to travel to the Palestinian territories and Israel.
Islamist militant group Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 resulted in the death of 1,207 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures, which includes hostages killed in captivity.
Israel responded with a military offensive that has killed at least 44,429 in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the UN considers reliable.
Airstrikes in northwestern Syria kill 25 people, says Syria’s White Helmets
- The Syria offensive began Wednesday, the same day a truce between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah came into effect
DAMASCUS: The Syrian rescue service known as the White Helmets said early on Monday on X that at least 25 people have been killed in northwestern Syria in airstrikes carried out by the Syrian government and Russia on Sunday.
In Blinken call, Turkiye backs moves to ease Syria tension
- The flareup has also seen pro-Turkish militants groups attacking both government forces and Kurdish YPG fighters in and around the northern Aleppo province over the weekend, a Syrian war monitor said
ISTANBUL: Turkiye’s top diplomat and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke Sunday about the “rapidly developing” conflict in Syria where militants have made gains.
Blinken and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan discussed by telephone “the need for de-escalation and the protection of civilian lives and infrastructure in Aleppo and elsewhere,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.
The call came after Syrian militants and their Turkish-backed allies launched their biggest offensive in years, seizing control of Syria’s second-largest city Aleppo from forces loyal to President Bashar Assad.
According to a Turkish foreign ministry source, Fidan told Blinken Ankara was “against any development that would increase instability in the region” and said Turkiye would “support moves to reduce the tension in Syria.”
He also said “the political process between the regime and the opposition should be finalized” to ensure peace in Syria while insisting that Ankara would “never allow terrorist activities against Turkiye nor against Syrian civilians.”
The flareup has also seen pro-Turkish militant groups attacking government forces and Kurdish People’s Defense Units (YPG) fighters in and around Aleppo, a Syrian war monitor said.
Turkiye sees the YPG as an offshoot of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has led a decades-long insurgency against Ankara.
The Syria offensive began Wednesday, the same day a truce between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah came into effect.
More than 400 people have so far been killed in the offensive, most of them combatants, a Syrian war monitor said.
The State Department said the two also discussed “humanitarian efforts in Gaza and the need to bring the war to an end” as well as efforts to secure the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas.
Fidan said Israel “should keep its promises in order for the Lebanon ceasefire to become permanent” and called for a ceasefire in Gaza “as soon as possible.”
The pair also discussed Ukraine and South Caucasus, the source said.
Russia says helping Syrian army ‘repel’ insurgents in three northern provinces
- Russia launched airstrikes on militant targets in Aleppo for the first time since 2016
MOSCOW: Russia on Sunday said it was helping the Syrian army “repel” armed insurgents in three northern provinces, as Moscow seeks to support the government led by its ally Bashar al-Assad.
An Islamist-dominated militant alliance launched an offensive against the Syrian government on Wednesday, with Syrian forces losing control of the city of Aleppo on Sunday, according to a war monitor.
“The Syrian Arab Army, with the assistance of the Russian Aerospace Forces, is continuing its operation to repel terrorist aggression in the provinces of Idlib, Hama and Aleppo,” the Russian military said in a briefing on its website.
“Over the past day, missile and bombing strikes were carried out on places where militants and equipment were gathered,” it said in the same briefing, without saying where or by whom.
It said at least “320 militants were destroyed.”
Russia announced earlier this week that it was bombing militant targets in the war-torn country, with Russian warplanes striking parts of Aleppo — Syria’s second city — for the first time since 2016, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Moscow is Syrian leader Assad’s most important military backer, having turned the tide of the civil war in his favor when it intervened in 2015.
