Lebanon is looking to increase its naval capabilities and Prime Minister Saad Hariri Monday announced that he would do his best to have a plan endorsed by his government before August 31.
The U.N. Security Council, during the renewal of the mandate of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon last year, passed UNSCR 2433 calling on the Lebanese government to develop a plan to increase its naval capabilities, “with the goal of decreasing the [UNIFIL’s] Maritime Taskforce and transitioning activities to the country’s armed forces.”
Hariri reiterated Lebanon’s commitment to UNSCR 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, and UNSCR 2433, which was the resolution extending UNIFIL’s mandate until this year.
At the time, Lebanon was also called on to deploy the Lebanese Armed Forces in its territorial waters “at an accelerated pace” within “precise timelines”
Hariri Monday reaffirmed his and Lebanon’s commitment. “I am fully dedicated to further developing the capacities of the Lebanese Navy,” Hariri said while touring the maritime task force ship of UNIFIL at the Port of Beirut.
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The premier announced that he had been briefed on the final stages of the plan last week and “will do my utmost best to have it endorsed by Cabinet before August 31, the date of the renewal of the UNIFIL mandate.”
“This plan falls within my priority to strengthen state security institutions and to maintain state authority over the Lebanese territorial waters, in order to counter terrorist activities, illegal immigration, human trafficking and the smuggling of goods and illicit material,” Hariri added.
Lebanon is also in a phase of trying to find a solution the maritime border dispute with Israel due to potential offshore oil reserves.
The discovery of large deposits of natural gas in parts of the eastern Mediterranean Sea has led to increase attention in the border demarcation issue over the past decade.
Lebanon is scheduled to start exploration this December, and plans to drill in maritime Block 9, about 8 percent of which Israel claims, next December. The countries dispute some 856 square kilometers of waters in total.
The United States has been mediating between Lebanon and Israel in a bid to launch border demarcation talks between the countries, which have been in a state of war since 1948.
Hariri said this naval force would play “a pivotal role in protecting our national oil and gas resources.”
“[This] comes at a time when I am relentlessly working on starting negotiations on our maritime boundaries,” Hariri said.
Hariri also called on the international community to help.
He cited UNIFIL’s work as making Lebanon safer. “The calm we have been enjoying since 2006 is mainly due to what you are doing as maritime forces. I assure you that the Lebanese people are very grateful for this.”
This article has been adapted from its original source.
