FM, Diplomatic Sources: International Drilling Companies Don’t Operate in Disputed Areas

Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour and diplomatic sources have calmed Lebanese fears that Israel would drill for oil and natural gas in Lebanese waters saying oil drilling companies do not make investments on disputed territory.

“No company can make gas and oil investments in disputed maritime areas,” Mansour told An Nahar daily in remarks published Monday.

The diplomatic sources also said “there is a fact that Israel knows before anyone else that international oil drilling companies do not operate in disputed areas.”

The remarks came after the Israeli cabinet on Sunday approved a proposed maritime boundary line with Lebanon — setting up a new conflict over huge natural gas and oil reserves.

Israeli officials said the government felt compelled to set a proposed boundary after Lebanon submitted its own proposal to the U.N. The Lebanese line incorporates waters that Israel also claims and where it has approved prospective drilling.

The diplomatic sources told An Nahar that Israel was seeking to take advantage of the developments in Lebanon and the region to “violate Lebanon’s economic rights on one hand and to infiltrate into Lebanon’s local crisis on the other.”

However, the diplomatic sources expressed relief that Israel’s violations wouldn’t be a factor of division among the Lebanese given that Premier Najib Miqati’s cabinet would walk in the path of the previous government that had decided to closely follow-up the Lebanese proposal to the U.N.