US calls for resuming talks on Lebanon-Israel sea border demarcation

The United States (US) is pressuring Lebanon to resume talks over the issue of its maritime border demarcation with Israel, Israel’s state-owned broadcaster Kan reported yesterday.

Official sources at the Lebanese presidency have said the country’s President Michel Aoun informed “his close associates a month ago about his intention to resume conversations on the matter,” pointing to what they described as his “resentment about the way the issue is being managed.”

They added that there were a number of calls carried out between “diplomatic parties regarding the issue.”

Lebanon and Israel have no formal ties and have not signed a peace agreement. Since Israel was founded in 1948, the two countries have long disagreed on border demarcations in the eastern Mediterranean, an issue that gained prominence in the past decade when large deposits of natural gas were discovered.

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