Ready to resume border talks with Israel: Lebanese president

TEL AVIV, 27 January 2022, (TON): President Michel Aoun says “Lebanon is ready to resume talks over a maritime border dispute with Israel.”

Longtime foes Lebanon and Israel started indirect negotiations through a US mediator in 2020 at a UN peacekeeping base in Lebanon’s Naqoura, but have stalled several times. The last round of talks on the matter was held last May.

Israel and Lebanon have no diplomatic relations and are technically in a state of war. They each claim about 860 square kilometers (330 square miles) of the Mediterranean Sea as being within their exclusive economic zones.

Lebanon has sunk deep into an economic and financial crisis that started in late 2019 — a culmination of decades of corruption and mismanagement by the political class. The small Mediterranean country is eager to resolve the border dispute with Israel, paving the way for potential lucrative oil and gas deals.

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