A US group of experts Monday made a field survey at the sites of Lebanon-Israel water conflict in south Lebanon, the official Lebanese news agency reported.
The team, including a hydraulics expert, visited the Wazzani river and the irrigation works being constructed to feed water for some 60 villages in south Lebanon. "If there is conflict, it should be settled within the framework of the United Nations in line with international conventions," said a US Embassy official who was accompanying the team.
The US State Department's emissary Richard Larsen is to arrive Lebanon to begin his fact-finding mission on Wednesday.
Earlier it was reported that the mission of American water experts is expected to arrive in Beirut to mediate in a dispute over the Council of the South’s project to tap the Hasbani River, which also supplies water to Israel.
"American technical experts will be arriving over the coming weeks to take a look at water issues and to work with the Lebanese government to increase understanding about the nature of the project," an embassy official told Reuters.
Work on the project is continuing and Lebanon has asked permanent members of the UN Security Council as well as the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to persuade Israel to stop making threats over the Hasbani.
On Sunday, dozens of Lebanese rallied near the area where engineers were laying a pipeline from the source of the Wazzani, in support of the government's plan to pump water.
(Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
