A UN ship pictured off the coast of Naqoura, on the border with Israel, on Oct. 14, 2020. (Credit: AFP)
BEIRUT — Negotiations on the maritime border between Lebanon and Israeli-occupied Palestine will resume next week, Reuters reported the Israeli Energy Ministry as saying Wednesday.
Here’s what we know:
• “Lebanon is ready to resume negotiating the demarcation of the southern maritime borders, in a way that preserves the rights and sovereignty of the Lebanese state,” President Michel Aoun said.
• Israeli Energy Minister Karine Elharrar is scheduled to meet with Israel-born US envoy Amos Hochstein next week to discuss the negotiations.
• Hochstein will also return to Lebanon in the next two weeks, according to a senior US State Department official, but the exact date is not yet known.
• Lebanon and the Israeli government started indirect negotiations through US mediation in 2020 at a UN peacekeeping base in Lebanon’s Naqoura, but the talks have stalled several times.