Lebanon’s caretaker public works and transport minister said on Monday he had signed a document expanding Lebanon’s maritime border.

The amendment, decree no. 6433, would add around 1,400 square kilometers to Lebanon’s Exclusive Economic Zone in its original submission to the United Nations.

The document now needs to be signed off by Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, minister of defense and president ahead of submission to the UN for a formal claim to register the new coordinates for the area.

“I expect it will be signed as everyone, the minister of defense and the prime minister and the president are concerned about this,” minister Michel Najjar told a news conference.

Negotiations between Lebanon and the Zionist entity were launched in October to try to resolve the dispute about their maritime border that has held up hydrocarbon exploration in the potentially gas-rich area.

The talks, a culmination of three years of diplomacy by Washington, have since stalled.

“We will not give up any inch of our homeland or a drop of its waters or an inch of its dignity,” Najjar said.

Source: Agencies