It was announced on Thursday that a US ambassador will be visiting Lebanon the following week to discuss the resumption of negotiations over the maritime border delineation dispute.
Amos Hochstein will be in Lebanon “within a week,” Lebanese Parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri said at a meeting with the Press Syndicate Council.
According to him, it is expected that negotiations will resume and that the framework of the agreement would be upheld.
According to maps given to the United Nations by Lebanon and Israel in 2011, a sea area of 860 square kilometers is at the center of a dispute between the two countries.
Four meetings between Israel and Lebanon were conducted under UN auspices and US intervention since the area is rich in natural gas and oil.
Also, Berri asked France’s Total business to begin drilling and exploring efforts in uncontested areas.
It was agreed that exploration efforts in Lebanese territorial seas would be carried out by French Total, Italian Eni, and Russian Novatek in 2018, but no work was done.
