The Lebanese Foreign Ministry is making a road map for the state to engross in discussions with Syria over the delineation of maritime borders, Lebanese Foreign Minister Charbel Wehbe proclaimed to a news agency.
The official endorsement will be made once the ministry settles its review of a contract under which the Assad government lately bestowed a Russian company the right to survey offshore oil and gas in areas that overlap Lebanon’s exclusive economic zone.
In the previous month, the Assad regime presented Kapital, a Russian company, an agreement to survey oil and gas in two demarcated blocks that overlap Lebanon’s northern sea blocks by an assessed area of 750 square kilometers.
Wehbe held that the foreign ministry is evaluating an unsanctioned copy of the contract and will be expecting the Lebanese army’s description on the issue before filing its recommendations to the president and prime minister-designate.
“Once our assessment is complete, we will submit our report and recommendations for preparing for negotiations as soon as possible,” Wehbe held.
These endorsements, Wehbe said, will perhaps include the establishment of a Lebanese delegation to confer the demarcation of Lebanon’s maritime boundaries with Syria, which has not recognized the Lebanese delineation of 2011.
