Lebanon warns Israel

Lebanon issued a complaint to the U.N., warning Israel the setting of a maritime border between the two countries by Jerusalem threatened peace and security in the region. Israel's cabinet on July 10 approved the demarcation of the northern maritime borderwith Lebanon, in an effort to protect economic rights in offshore territories that Lebanon is claiming as its own. Israel submitted its map to the U.N. to counter a map that Lebanon submitted last year. The area of the Mediterranean Sea in question is close to an area where Americanand Israeli firms discovered two massive natural gas fields. On Monday Lebanese Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour sent a letter to U.N.Secretary General Ban Ki-moon rejecting geographic coordinates submitted by Israel.. The letter accused Israel of infringing on Lebanon's Exclusive Economic Zone, a sea zone that would give Beirut the right to search the area for natural resources. Mansour said Beirut urged Ban Ki-moon to take all necessary measures to avoid conflict. An Israeli official said borders cannot be demarked unilaterally, but rather must be agreed upon by both countries, or go to an arbitrator that both sides agree upon. Since Lebanon has refused to do either, the official said, it can't just set the maritime border on its own. Once it did, he added, Israel had no choice but to do the same in order to protect its interests.