Nazir Reda wrote in Asharq Al-Awsat:
Both Lebanon and Syria tried to contain the confusion following the announcement to postpone the date of the official visit of the Lebanese delegation to Damascus to discuss the demarcation of the maritime border with Syria. controversy over the Shebaa Farms and the Kfar Shuba Hills in southeastern Lebanon, in the Israeli border triangle.
After Lebanon announced that an official delegation would visit Syria on Wednesday, a Lebanese diplomatic source said on Monday that the Syrian government had sent a message to the Lebanese Foreign Ministry stating that Damascus had apologized and that Syrian officials had previous engagements, without mentioning a new date.
This led to confusion in determining the date of the Lebanese delegation. The Syrian ambassador to Lebanon, Ali Abdel Karim Ali, said yesterday, after his visit to Lebanese President Michel Aoun, that the date “has not been canceled, but it was said that it had been agreed later, because after the the date was set on Wednesday, the program in Syria was full and the connections were already in place ”. Ali downplayed the hypothesis of complications, saying that “there is a treaty of brotherhood and cooperation between the two countries, and Syria is always committed, even in pending issues so that they are always easy and convenient”. Aoun awarded the Syrian Ambassador the National Cedar Order with the rank of high officer on the occasion of the end of his diplomatic missions in Beirut.
Furthermore, members of the Lebanese parliament have said that Damascus does not want to demarcate the borders. The member of the strong Republic bloc, MP Fadi Karam, said: “The Syrian regime sent to the United Nations in 2014 an objection to the 2011 delimitation of Lebanon of its northern maritime borders and did not send a document to confirm the Lebaneseness of the Shebaa Farms in response to Lebanon’s question. It refuses to delimit the borders, it does not recognize the sovereignty of Lebanon, it does not stop smuggling and it does not recover the displaced ”.
Signs of border conflict appeared in the north, when a decree defining the Lebanese Exclusive Economic Zone was issued in 2011, which included lists of the coordinates of the geographic points of the borders of this region from the three sides: south, west and north.
Lebanon unilaterally identified border point no. (6) and sent it to the United Nations in 2010, and corrected it again in 2011 by installing point no. (7), after which he informed the United Nations, together with the definition of the southern sea point no. (23). After Lebanon unilaterally and temporarily demarcated the borders of its northern exclusive economic zone, Syria proceeded to implement the same practice in terms of claiming ownership of a part of the exclusive economic zone belonging to Lebanon. Damascus opposed Lebanon’s unilateral demarcation of its exclusive economic zone in the north, sending a letter of protest to the United Nations in 2014.
The dispute over the maritime border between Lebanon and Syria is taking place over an area of over 750 square kilometers, according to Lebanese sources familiar with the Lebanon file, which has led the dispute to reach about 1,000 square kilometers.
The problem was exacerbated in 2021 when the Syrian Oil Ministry and the Russian company “Capitale” signed a contract under which the Syrian state granted the Russian company the exclusive right to explore and develop oil in offshore Block No. 1 in the exclusive Syrian economic sector in the Mediterranean area, off the coast of the Governorate of Tartus, up to the Syrian-Lebanese maritime border, with an area of 2,250 square kilometers. The Syrian block no. (1) overlaps with Lebanese blocks no. (1) and (2) and as a result a clear boundary dispute emerges.
The demarcation of the border with Syria is an unsolved historical problem, despite the demarcation attempts through mixed committees in the 1970s to delimit land borders, while no attempt was made to delimit maritime borders.
While all efforts were halted during the Lebanese war period between 1975 and 1990, no joint official committee was formed to demarcate the post-war border, except when the Lebanon land border demarcation file was raised. and Syria for the first time at the dialogue table held by President Nabih Berri in Parliament in the spring of 2006 to delimit the border. The common area between the two countries extends for 357 km. The demarcation of the border remained suspended, although a mixed committee was formed which was entrusted with the task of demarcating the border after then Prime Minister Saad Hariri visited Damascus in 2010.
Lebanon initiated the formation of a political security committee under the supervision of (then) minister Jean Oghassabian, and was provided with documents and maps, including those relating to aerial maps, and a comprehensive analysis of the borders between the two countries. . Jordan, Lebanese officials say.
In addition to these tipping points, the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms and Kfar Shuba Hills represent a political and geographical dilemma. Lebanese officials, who have accompanied the demarcation attempts, say Damascus has not responded to Lebanon’s request in 2010 to provide it with maps and documents to establish Lebanese farms.
