CAIRO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st August, 2022) Lebanon and Israel are close to concluding an agreement on the demarcation of the maritime borders between the two countries, with the final stage expected to start in September, a diplomatic source in Lebanon told Sputnik on Saturday.
"We are very close to reaching the agreement on the demarcation of the maritime border with Israel. We were informed that the response of US (Senior Advisor for Energy Security) mediator Amos Hochstein from the Israeli side to the Lebanese proposal will be positive," the source said.
In June, the Lebanese authorities conveyed their position on the delineation of maritime borders with Israel to Hochstein. Israel called on Lebanon to accelerate the negotiations and called the disputed Karish gas field its strategic asset, assuring that it had no intention to extract gas in the disputed territory.
Israel and Lebanon have attempted since 1996 to resolve an overlap between the two nations' territorial waters situated over large fossil fuel deposits. The US-mediated negotiations began in 2020. Lebanon initially laid claims to 860 square kilometers (332 square miles) of waters but then modified the bid to include an extra 1,430 square kilometers encompassing part of the Karish gas field, claimed in its entirety by Israel. Israel refused to discuss those new terms.
