Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib said on Friday there is more optimism than ever on reaching a deal to delineate the country’s maritime border with Israel via US mediation, Reuters reported, citing a tweet from the ministry’s account.
“There has never been optimism to the extent that there is today,” Bou Habib said, noting that the US official mediating the dispute, Amos Hochstein, would arrive in Beirut over the weekend for talks with Lebanese officials.
In 2021, official discussions commenced between representatives of Israel and Lebanon, with the aim of reaching an agreement on their maritime border.
There have been major natural gas discoveries off the coasts of both countries during the last decade, and the border dispute has halted gas exploration in an area that has attracted the interest of US energy companies.
The talks were initiated after Lebanon signed its first contract to drill for oil and gas off its coast with a consortium comprising energy giants Total, ENI and Novatek, including in a block disputed by Israel.
Israel says one of two blocks in the eastern Mediterranean where Lebanon wants to drill for oil belongs to it, and had denounced any exploration by Beirut as "provocative".
Earlier this week, officials in Israel quoted by Kan 11 Newssaid they believe that the maritime dispute with Lebanon is on the brink of a solution.
According to the report, Hochstein is expected to present during his visit to Lebanon a compromise between the demands of Israel and those of Lebanon: The Karish gas rig will be included in the territory of Israel, and the same company will drill both in Israel and in Lebanon.
Last month, the Lebanese government objected to the arrival of a vessel operated by London-based Energean off the Mediterranean coast to develop the Karish field.
(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)