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Lebanon Insists on Sovereignty Over Shebaa Farms
Lebanese Foreign Minister Mahmoud Hammoud said on Thursday that the Blue Line, drawn by the United Nations as a virtual Lebanese-Israeli border, should not foreclose Lebanon's right to reclaim its occupied land, the official NNA news agency reported.
Hammoud said "the Blue Line, or withdrawal line or with any other name, should not impede our right to take back occupied lands, especially the Shebaa Farms."
He stressed that Lebanon will never give up the farms and U.N. Resolution 425 has not been implemented completely.
The U.N. drew the Blue Line to authenticate the completeness of Israel's withdrawal from south Lebanon last May. The line excludes the 200-square kilometer Shebaa Farms from the Lebanese territory although Syria and Lebanon confirmed it belongs to Lebanon.
The Shebaa Farms area, a mountainous region at the Lebanese- Syrian borders, was occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war. While Lebanon claims it, Israel says it captured the territory from Syria and that its future status will only be determined in the context of a peace treaty with Syria.
The U.N. also considers the area to be part of occupied Syrian territory and subject to U.N. Resolution 242 and within the mandate of the U.N. Disengagement Observer Force, which was set up in the wake of the 1973 Mideast war to monitor ceasefire in Syria's Golan Heights.
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