Face-to-face meeting between the Lebanese and Cypriot delegations in Cyprus in March 2023. (Credit: Dalati and Nohra)
Nearly 20 years in the making, the agreement signed Wednesday in Baabda between President Joseph Aoun and his Cypriot counterpart, Nikos Christodoulides, on the delimitation of the maritime border, has sparked criticism on both substance and process. As soon as it was announced, several parties — from the Lebanese Forces (LF) to Amal and Hezbollah — condemned it.First, the way the agreement was signed failed to gain consensus. Georges Okaiss, MP from the LF, claimed that "the signature by the minister of public works, or even by the government as a whole, of a maritime border delimitation treaty with Cyprus, without submitting it to Parliament for ratification, constitutes a constitutional violation." He refers to Article 52 of the Constitution, which states: "Treaties involving state finances, trade treaties, and all...
Nearly 20 years in the making, the agreement signed Wednesday in Baabda between President Joseph Aoun and his Cypriot counterpart, Nikos Christodoulides, on the delimitation of the maritime border, has sparked criticism on both substance and process. As soon as it was announced, several parties — from the Lebanese Forces (LF) to Amal and Hezbollah — condemned it.First, the way the agreement was signed failed to gain consensus. Georges Okaiss, MP from the LF, claimed that "the signature by the minister of public works, or even by the government as a whole, of a maritime border delimitation treaty with Cyprus, without submitting it to Parliament for ratification, constitutes a constitutional violation." He refers to Article 52 of the Constitution, which states: "Treaties involving state finances, trade treaties, and...
