Deputy Speaker Elias Bou Saab met overnight in New York with the American mediator Amos Hochstein to discuss the sea border demarcation file, as Israeli media reports said a final agreement is expected within two weeks.
Israeli business news website Globes, meanwhile, quoted a source saying that there is “hope to finalize the agreement within two weeks, but a few contentious items are delaying the process.”
“One is the starting point of the maritime border on the shore at Rosh Hanikra/Naqoura. Another relates to islands belonging to Israel that change the line of the border.”
“A third is over the distance that Israeli defense officials are demanding between Energean’s Israeli production platforms and the platform due to operating in Lebanon’s economic waters,” the source added.
Lebanon’s al-Akhbar newspaper, which is close to Hezbollah, reported that “the process of drafting the agreement has started.”
“The agreement will also include measures by a neutral side to prevent friction on the two sides of the maritime border,” al-Akhbar said.
Simultaneously, Lebanon’s leaders and the U.S. mediator have reportedly started contacts aimed at agreeing on “the date of decisive negotiations meeting in Naqoura in which the final texts would be formulated in order to be signed.”
