Israel is ready to renew efforts to solve the dispute with Lebanon over the delineation of territorial waters in the Mediterranean, but will not accept Beirut dictating the terms of the negotiations, Energy Minister Karine Elharrar said this week.
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The talks − mediated by the United States − were launched a year ago in an attempt to resolve the dispute, which has held up exploration in the potentially gas-rich area. The talks stalled in May.
US special envoy Amos Hochstein is due in both countries this month to try to give fresh impetus to the talks just as Lebanon has sought clarifications from the international community after Israel granted US oilfield services group Halliburton an offshore drilling contract.
"We need to look for a solution that leads to a breakthrough and not try to think in the old ways of drawing lines," Elharrar told Reuters in an interview in Paris, adding that she would speak to Hochstein soon.
At the end of talks in May, Lebanese President Michel Aoun said there should be no preconditions. He rejected the US mediator's suggestions asking for negotiations to be based on Israeli and Lebanese border lines already submitted and registered with the United Nations.
"We started [negotiations] by one line and then they [Lebanon] pushed the line. Again and again," Elharrar said. "This is not the way to have a negotiation. They cannot dictate the lines."
Earlier talks stalled after each side presented contrasting maps outlining proposed borders that increased the size of the disputed area.
Mohamed Ebeid, a Lebanese expert on the border talks and former director at the Information Ministry, said the new US mediator is due in the second half of October in Beirut.
"Unfortunately we have returned to internal bickering instead of going to the negotiations united," he told Reuters when asked about Lebanon changing its mind about the lines.
Since the talks stalled, Lebanon's former caretaker prime minister, Hassan Diab, and ministers of defense and public works, Maurice Salem and Ali Hamieh, approved a draft decree which would expand Lebanon's claim, adding around 1,400 square km (540 square miles) to its exclusive economic zone.
"We share a gas field and have to find a solution on how to use it so that each side will receive their fair share," Elharrar said. "We are willing to give it another shot."
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