Lebanon-Israel Border Talks Won't be Moved to 'Geneva or Paris'

A meeting held in Ain el-Tineh over the issue of Lebanon’s sea border demarcation talks with Israel was a “preparatory meeting,” a lawmaker said.

The MP was referring to a meeting between Speaker Nabih Berri, caretaker defense and foreign ministers Zeina Akar and Charbel Wehbe, and the head of the Lebanese delegation to the border negotiations, Brig. Gen. Bassam Yassine.

“What’s important is that we have returned the negotiations to Naqoura, after they tried to move the talks to Geneva or Paris,” MP Yassine Jaber of Berri’s Development and Liberation bloc said, in remarks to the Progressive Socialist Party’s al-Anbaa news portal.

“It’s a good thing that we have kept the negotiations in Naqoura and it is necessary for the military committee to take its time in preparing its files,” Jaber added, noting that “there is nothing on the front burner.”

In December, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo voiced regret over a stalemate in the negotiations and offered Washington's mediation.

Lebanon and Israel which remain technically at war had opened the negotiations in October after quiet U.S. diplomacy, seeking to clear the way for offshore oil and gas exploration sought by both.

The latest session of talks between Israel and Lebanon was put off after Israel accused Lebanon of inconsistency.

The two sides have been negotiating based on a map registered with the United Nations in 2011, which shows an 860-square-kilometer patch of sea as being disputed.

But Lebanon considers that map to have been based on wrong estimates and now demands an additional 1,430 square kilometers of sea farther south, which includes part of Israel's Karish gas field, according to Lebanese energy expert Laury Haytayan.