WASHINGTON – U.S. energy envoy Amos Hochstein met with Energy Minister Karine Elharrar on Sunday as part of U.S. efforts to demarcate a maritime border between Israel and Lebanon.
Hochstein is the point person on the U.S.-brokered negotiations between Israel and Lebanon, which have been ongoing at various clips since October 2020. The talks have significant implications for natural gas exploration in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, and the border dispute has halted exploration in areas where U.S. energy companies have dedicated interest.
Both Israel and Lebanon claim that the area in question – a 330-square mile triangular area of the Mediterranean Sea that starts at the shared land border – is within their own exclusive economic zones.
Lebanese and Israeli leadership have publicly expressed willingness to continue negotiations as part of efforts to settle the dispute, despite talks stalling after four rounds. While the first rounds of negotiations were directly between Israeli and Lebanese officials – the first such direct talks in three decades – Hochstein is opting for indirect talks with each country’s respective officials before offering a compromise proposal.
Hochstein, who was last in Lebanon in October and in Israel in November, previously aimed to resolve the dispute by the time of Lebanon’s parliamentary elections in March. Those elections have since been rescheduled for May.
Hochstein’s involvement in the Israel-Lebanon dispute comes as U.S. positions on Israeli energy matters have entered the news. President Joe Biden’s administration recently informed Israel, Greece and Cyprus of its opposition to the EastMed Pipeline, previously approved by the Donald Trump administration after the plan’s 2016 inception. Hochstein has previously criticized the pipeline as a financially unfeasible deal driven by politics that would be investing in fossil fuels.
The State Department, meanwhile, recently strongly denied an Israeli report that the U.S. had brokered a deal according to which Israel would indirectly supply natural gas to Lebanon via Jordan and Syria.