A Cabinet session was marred Wednesday by a longrunning dispute among ministers over the formation of a committee to administer the oil sector amid mounting calls for Lebanon to begin exploration of its offshore oil and gas deposits in the eastern Mediterranean.
The Cabinet, which met under Prime Minister Najib Mikati at the Grand Serail, was supposed to discuss the demarcation of Lebanon’s maritime boundaries in line with a report prepared by the Foreign Ministry’s maritime demarcation committee. But the Cabinet shelved discussion of the issue because Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour was absent, attending the Non-Aligned Movement’s summit in Iran.