Beirut 7th of September : Lebanese Deputy Parliament Speaker Elias Bou Saab said that September could be a crucial month in the indirect border demarcation talks between Beirut and Israel. “Things are moving in the right direction and we must be optimistic that this issue will be resolved soon,” Bou Saab said after his meeting with President Michel Aoun at Baabda Palace on Tuesday.
The Deputy Speaker also said that a planned visit next week by US mediator Amos Hochstein would “not bring an end-to-end solution” to the border dispute between Lebanon and with Israeli authorities, but it could be “another positive step in the direction of a solution”.
He stated that his ongoing communication with Hochstein will “intensify” in September.
“There are a lot of issues however, they are being resolved one by one and, this is why we believe that things are on the right track.”
Lebanese authorities are working to settle a dispute with Israel regarding maritime boundaries.The dispute has gotten worse after the Jewish state on June 5 dispatched a vessel to Karish field which Tel Aviv says as being within its economic zone while Beirut claims it is in the waters that are disputed.
Israel previously announced it is planning to extract gas from the area of dispute with Lebanon in September, causing Hezbollah in Lebanon to warn of attacks in the event that Israel does not first resolve the border dispute with Beirut.
Lebanon as well as Israel are separated through the Blue Line published by the UN on June 7, 2000, for the reasons of the determination of whether Israel had completely removed from Lebanon.
It is described as:”temporary” and “not an actual border, but rather a “line of withdrawal”.
