Aoun agrees with Assad on demarcating Lebanon-Syria sea border

President Michel Aoun called his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad two days ago and discussed with him the bilateral ties between the two countries and the issue of demarcating the maritime border between Lebanon and Syria, al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Saturday.

Aoun and Assad “agreed on forming official delegations from the ministries and official administrations in the two countries to hold meetings in Beirut and Damascus in order to quickly reach an agreement, especially that the points of contention are not of the unworkable type, although they require technical and legal discussions,” the daily said.

The two leaders also stressed that the Lebanese-Syrian border demarcation discussions “would take place without any mediator and that what the two sides agree on would be documented as a treaty between two countries, which would not at all resemble what happened with Israel, neither in terms of the presence of a U.S. mediator, nor in terms of needing U.N. or international guarantees or indirect negotiations,” al-Akhbar added.

“The relevant authorities in the two countries have started preparing the papers related to coordinates and the lines of the exclusive economic zones of the two sides,” the newspaper said.