Lebanon and Israel at loggerheads over maritime border

Jul 11, 2011, 16:46 GMT

Beirut - Lebanon warned Israel on Monday that a new map layout of the maritime border between the two countries could lead to increased tension in the region.

Israel's cabinet on Sunday approved a map of the country's proposed maritime borders with Lebanon, to be submitted to the United Nations for an opinion.

'The new border as proposed by Israel cuts through Lebanon's economic zone,' said Lebanon's Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour.

'Israel's new measures will create more tension in the region and will threaten peace and security,' Mansour told reporters. He added that Lebanon would also refer the issue to the United Nations.

Lebanon's president Michel Suleiman warned against any 'unilateral decisions Israel may take on maritime borders which would be a breach of international law.'

Since Israel announced last year that it had discovered massive gas deposits in the underwater Leviathan and Tamar fields off its coastline, Lebanon has declared that the fields are located inside its waters.

The two fields in question lie 130 and 90 kilometers off the coast of Israel. Their massive size would potentially turn the state that owns them into a gas exporter.

Israel and Lebanon are technically at war. The Hezbollah Shiite movement, which controls the Lebanese government, fought a deadly war with the Jewish state in 2006, in which most of Lebanon's major infrastructure was destroyed.

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