Lebanon wants to take 750 square kilometers of Syria’s east Mediterranean gas blocks after it failed to retrieve its legitimate 860 square kilometers later increased to 2290 square kilometers stolen by Israel.
The Lebanese minister of foreign affairs in the caretaker government said that ‘Syria and Lebanon should negotiate within the framework of international law and friendly neighborhood and the brotherly relations between the Arab countries to redraw the maritime borders between themselves.’
As a Syrian, I don’t recall the Lebanese officials use those ‘warm’ terms when dealing with Syria, especially during the past 10 years where the Lebanese governments have worked for the USA and Israel to destabilize Syria, smuggled terrorists and weapons into Syria, supported terrorist groups and provided their large media network as platforms to attack the Syrian government and the Syrian supporters of their government, and are forcing and intimidating Syrian refugees they placed in horrific conditions not to return their country; they even stole 21 billion dollars from Syrian depositors in their banks.
The Lebanese minister said that he is in constant talks with the Syrian ambassador in Lebanon to set up a proper platform and timeframe for the negotiations, he told the Lebanese state media that ‘now is the time to negotiate on drawing the maritime borders between Lebanon and Syria.’
Lebanon has been through 3 years of mediation through the United States with Israel that led to indirect talks starting last October 2020 over an initial 860 square kilometers of territorial waters that Israel is intending to explore for gas deposits. Lebanon later increased its demands asking for an area of 2290 square kilometers based on updated maps.
The talks between Lebanon and Israel reached a dead-end since the USA and Israel had no intentions to settle the issue fairly and were only demanding Israel’s conditions to be implemented, that’s one of the reasons that led Lebanese officials, especially the ones working for the Saudi ruling family, to try their luck carving out territorial waters from Syria in the north.
Their drooling over Syria’s anticipated gas deposits was triggered after Syria signed an agreement with a Russian company last month, March, to start exploring for gas deposits in Syria’s territorial waters in what is defined as Block Number 1.
So far, there is no official response from the Syrian government to the Lebanese odd ‘brotherly’ request.
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