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Israel Voices Frustration with Lebanon over Sea Border Talks
(Reuters) Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz voiced frustration on Friday with Lebanon's failure to agree to U.S.-mediated talks on setting their maritime border, suggesting Iran-backed Hizbullah was applying pressure on Beirut. Senior U.S. official David Satterfield has been shuttling between Lebanon and Israel in an effort to launch the talks on border demarcations in the eastern Mediterranean in the wake of the discovery of natural gas deposits there. Steinitz said, "(The) Lebanese on the one hand really want to develop their natural resources, and the unresolved dispute with Israel is disruptive for them - for us too, but for them more." But they are "under the sway of fear of Hizbullah," Lebanon's most powerful armed force and part of the Lebanese government.