Ban Concerned Over Oil Dispute, Urges Lebanon to Start Exploration

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon has expressed concern over Lebanese accusations about Israel’s encroachment on Lebanese waters, saying that any unilateral action would harm all countries in the region, a U.N. source said.

The source told An Nahar daily published Monday that Ban told President Michel Suleiman during his visit to New York last week that the U.N. can play a role in the delineation of Lebanon’s maritime borders under a Security Council resolution.

The newspaper said Suleiman and Ban discussed Lebanon’s Exclusive Economic Zone and the U.N.’s role in preventing Israel from infringing on 870 kilometers of Lebanese waters that include oil and gas fields.

The secretary-general reiterated to the Lebanese president that the country should begin investing its natural resources in undisputed waters on condition that Israel does not drill for gas and oil in the controversial 870-kilometer area pending a diplomatic effort to convince it to review the geographic coordinates that it submitted to the U.N. concerning the northern part of the waters it claims.

The Israeli cabinet in July approved a map and submitted it to the United Nations. But the map conflicts with Lebanon's proposed borders, which give the Jewish state less territorial waters and was submitted to the U.N. last year.