Reports: Cabinet to Issue 'Official' Position on Oil Rights after Tillerson's Visit
Prime Minister Saad Hariri has called the Cabinet for a meeting on Thursday at Baabda Palace to take a “unified” stance as for a U.S. offer regarding the disputed oil field with Israel, the Kuwaiti al-Anbaa daily reported.
The session will be held shortly after a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to Lebanon.
Tillerson is expected to arrive Thursday for a one-day visit during which he will meet with President Michel Aoun, Speaker Nabih Berri, Prime Minister Saad Hariri and Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil.
Al-Akhbar daily said that Tillerson will complete what the U.S. acting assistant secretary of state David Satterfield has begun regarding disputed points on the maritime and land borders between Lebanon and Israel.
The United States has reportedly offered Lebanon to return to the so called “Frederick Hoff line” as the only solution to the maritime border crisis. “Otherwise, Lebanon will not be allowed to extract oil or gas from the southern blocks,” said the newspaper.
The line is known after a US envoy to Syria and Lebanon drawn in 2012 and gives Lebanon 60 percent of the offshore oil Block 9 and gives Israel 40 percent.
The views of Lebanese officials were not unanimous on Satterfield's proposal last week, said al-Akhbar. Some believe the “Hoff line offer” was the only remaining “survival jacket” for Lebanon to begin extracting oil and gas from the southern blocks. However, Aoun and Berri have emphasized that Lebanon will not give up on its rights.
Despite the “confusion” of official Lebanon, it was decided after the latest meeting between Aoun, Berri and Hariri that “it is not permissible to meet Tillerson without a unified position on the American offer,” added the daily.
Accordingly, the US minister will be informed of Lebanon's position and “adherence to the Lebanese border line and the 860 square kilometers that Israel has turned into a disputed area.”
Source: Naharnet
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