BEIRUT (Dispatches) – Lebanon will send its comments on a U.S. proposal over its maritime dispute with the Zionist regime, to the American official mediating talks by Tuesday, a top Lebanese official said on Monday, Reuters reports.
Deputy Parliament Speaker, Elias Bou Saab, said the Lebanese government would not respond to the proposal officially until U.S. Envoy, Amos Hochstein, responded to its concerns, which it expected him to do by the end of the week.
“The devils are in the details, but the devils are now small,” Bou Saab said.
A day earlier, Lebanon’s parliament speaker said a draft, U.S.-brokered deal over the dispute must be studied before a final reply is given, according to comments distributed by his office.
Earlier on Saturday the Lebanese presidency said Beirut had received a letter from U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein regarding proposals for the maritime dispute between Lebanon and the occupying regime, enemies with a history of conflict.
Hochstein has been shuttling between Lebanon and the occupied territories in an effort to seal a deal that would pave the way for offshore energy exploration and defuse one potential source of conflict between the two sides.
Lebanon and the occupying regime have been officially at war since the regime’s occupation of Palestinian lands in 1948 and both claim some 860 square kilometers of the Mediterranean Sea.
Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun’s office in a statement said U.S. Ambassador Dorothy Shea delivered a proposal from Hochstein during a meeting at the presidential palace in Baabda.
A Lebanese official who attended the talks last month told The Associated Press that the proposal put forward by the U.S. envoy gives Lebanon the right to the Qana field, located partially in the Israeli-occupied territories. A part of it stretches deep into a disputed area. The official added that the main point now is how to draw the demarcation line in a way that stretches south of Qana.
In August, Lebanon rejected a Zionist proposal on demarcation of the southern areas. A Lebanese diplomatic source said as part of the offer, Beirut was required to give up the southwestern part of Block 8 in particular. But Beirut rejected to give up any square meter in Block 8.
On August 19, al-Akhbar Lebanese newspaper said the Zionist regime has pledged to acknowledge that Line 23 and the Qana prospect field are in Lebanese territory while also pleading with Hezbollah to set aside potential plans to attack gas fields in case of a delayed deal.