STORY: Lebanon ready to discuss mediated land border demarcation with Israel: FM
DATELINE: Spet. 1, 2023
LENGTH: 00:02:01
LOCATION: Beirut
CATEGORY: POLITICS

SHOTLIST:
1. various of U.S. Special Presidential Coordinator for Global Infrastructure and Energy Security Amos J. Hochstein arriving to meet Lebanese House Speaker Nabih Berri
2. various of Hochstein's meeting with Berri
3. various of the meeting

STORYLINE:

Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib on Thursday expressed Lebanon's readiness to launch mediated land border demarcation talks with Israel, the National News Agency reported.

"Lebanon is ready to launch this process in a consistent manner by preserving Lebanese rights," Bou Habib said during his meeting with Amos J. Hochstein, U.S. special presidential coordinator for global infrastructure and energy security, in Lebanon's capital Beirut.

For his part, Hochstein said that he is evaluating the extent of readiness of the concerned parties to launch land border demarcation talks after the success of maritime border demarcation between Lebanon and Israel.

Hochstein added that he is studying the feasibility of mediation to solve disputed points on the land border.

The United Nations adopted the Blue Line in 2000 as a demarcation line between Lebanon and Israel to determine whether Israel had fully withdrawn from Lebanon.

Currently, there exist 13 disputed points whereby one of the parties, Lebanon or Israel, has expressed reservations or disagreement with the UN's determination of the trajectory of the line.

Apart from occasional tensions in recent months, the Lebanese-Israeli border has largely remained quiet since Israel fought a month-long war with Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militant group in Lebanon, in 2006.

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Beirut.
(XHTV)