Lebanese President Michel Aoun said Monday he believes a resolution to the Israel-Lebanon maritime border dispute is only "days away".
Israel rejected Lebanon's new amendments to the U.S.-brokered draft of the agreement last week. The deal is meant to resolve the dispute over natural gas set to be extracted from the Karish gas rig.
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Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Lebanese President Michel Aoun
(Photo: Olivier Fitoussi, AFP, DALATI AND NOHRA)
"There has been great progress made in the indirect talks," he said.
"Many of the outstanding disagreements have been resolved, and we are hopeful that the final map of the maritime border will be completed in the coming days," Aoun said.
"The result of the agreement will be that Lebanon will begin its search for natural gas in the Lebanese territory, which will bolster the country's economic recovery."
The Qatar-owned al Arabiya television channel said preparations were already underway for an announcement on the signing of an agreement that might take place on October 20.
On Sunday, the Biden administration continued to turn the screws on Beirut to waive the new demands to the draft agreement, and accept it as it is.
Washington realizes that the chances Prime Minister Yair Lapid would meet the new demands ahead of the Nov. 1 general election were slim, and tried to disabuse Lebanon of the idea.
Hochstein, along with national security official Brett McGurk, conducted a series of phone calls with senior Lebanese officials over the weekend and urged them to accept the original draft.
Assuming these efforts bear fruit, officials in Jerusalem believe sealing the agreement before the elections would still be possible. However, sources in Lapid's office say the required bureaucratic process probably cannot be completed before the elections.
According to an outline laid out by Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, the agreement would have to go up for approval in a government forum, and then be presented to the Knesset for comments in two weeks. She also presented an alternative option to bring the agreement to an immediate Knesset vote.
Meanwhile, energy company Energean, which holds the license to Israel's Karish offshore gas field, said Sunday that it began testing the flow of gas from the shore into the gas rig through underwater pipelines.
The company has begun testing following the Energy Ministry's approval to connect the gas platform to Israel's local natural gas systems.
Energean said this was crucial to ensuring the gas platform can become fully operational.
Itamar Eichner contributed to this story