The US State Department on January 16 denied brokering an agreement for Israel to supply natural gas to Lebanon indirectly. State Department disputes’ false’ reports that energy envoy facilitated understanding for the Jewish state to provide gas to its northern neighbour.
According to sources that the United States has organized an energy deal between Israel and Lebanon are false, the department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs wrote on its Tweeter handler.
However, the tweet did not address the truthfulness of the reported agreement.
According to sources, on January 14, signed the agreement in secret over the weekend and will see Israel transfer gas from the offshore Leviathan field to Jordan. From there, it will be transferred to Syria and on to Lebanon, though a network said the action would need correcting and developing a gas line that flows between those countries, which could take several years.
According to the report, the agreement was passed by the United States and was corresponded with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
They added that it partially created the deal to provide Lebanon with a choice to Iran, as it aims to recover from a deepening economic crisis.
The country where nearly 6 million people live is experiencing its worst-ever financial crisis. Their currency has lost around 90 percent of its value, savings enmeshed in banks, and qualified labour migrating in droves.
The World Bank has defined it as one of the most intense crises the world has witnessed since the 1850s.
Severe shortages in fuel have resulted in crippling power cuts, internet cuts, and hours-long waits at gas stations.
The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group, Hassan Nasrallah, announced in August last year that they are sending fuel to Lebanon to help them in crisis.
In September, the first Hezbollah commissioned Iranian oil tanker arrived in Syria port of Baniyas and unloaded diesel to Syrian storage places.
According to the Prime Minister of Lebanese, the shipments violate the sovereignty of Lebanon’s and are not approved by their government.
However, Isreal said that it would not interfere in their shipments.
Under another ambition to bring some power to the country, energy ministers from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon in September agreed to get Egyptian gas and Jordanian electricity to Lebanon via Syria.