Berri Urges U.S. to Play 'Balanced' Role in Conflict between Lebanon, Israel

إقرأ هذا الخبر بالعربية W460

Speaker Nabih Berri urged the United States to play a “fair and balanced role” in managing the dispute between Lebanon and Israel over the two countries' Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

According to As Safir newspaper published on Thursday, Berri called on U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry during a meeting between the two officials to seek to carry out a balanced role between Lebanon and Israel “if the U.S. was interested to become an investor in the Lebanese offshore oil in the future.”

The meeting between the two officials came in light of a short visit carried out by Kerry to Lebanon.

Kerry is the first secretary of state to come to Lebanon in five years. Hillary Rodham Clinton visited in April 2009. Kerry traveled to Lebanon at least four times as a senator since 2006, the last time in November 2010.

Lebanon and Israel are bickering over a maritime zone that consists of about 854 square kilometers and suspected energy reserves there could generate billions of dollars.

Lebanese officials recently expressed fear that Israel's discovery of a new offshore gas field near Lebanese territorial waters means the Jewish state could siphon some of Lebanon's crude oil.

Lebanon has been slow to exploit its maritime resources compared with other eastern Mediterranean countries. Israel, Cyprus and Turkey are all much more advanced in drilling for oil and gas.

In March 2010, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated a mean of 1.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil and a mean of 34.5 trillion cubic meters of recoverable gas in the Levant Basin in the eastern Mediterranean, which includes the territorial waters of Lebanon, Israel, Syria and Cyprus.

The U.S. had offered to mediate between the sides in an attempt to reach a solution.

Beirut argues that a maritime map it submitted to the U.N. is in line with an armistice accord drawn up in 1949, an agreement which is not contested by Israel.

H.K.

G.K.

Comments 2
Default-user-icon Christ's Cause (Guest) 05 June 2014, 12:14

time for Christians in lebanon to break away from the "arab cause" and identify with Christ's Cause.

Default-user-icon nahrnetlover (Guest) 05 June 2014, 14:31

Christ's Cause? what does this comment have to do with this article?