Mikati: \'Delimitation of Maritime Areas\' Law complete

"Arabs Today" learned that Prime Minister Najib Mikati has told the Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations to the Middle East, Michael Williams, that the Lebanese government, in cooperation with the Council of Representatives, completed a bill that identifies the Lebanese marine areas in order to preserve Lebanon's rights and duties, and will be reporting it to the United Nations immediately after issuing it". During the meeting which was held on Tuesday morning at the Grand Palace, President Mikati expressed his concern over the repeated Israeli violations of Lebanese sovereignty, the latest of them being last Monday in El Wazzani". He also called on "the United Nations to stop these violations and complete implementation of Security Council Resolution 1701." He stressed that "Lebanon is determined to defend its rights and safeguard its sovereignty by all legitimate means," calling on "the international community to deter Israel from violating Lebanese sovereignty and infringing on Lebanon's legitimate rights." He also renewed the condemnation of "the attack against the French battalion operating as part of international forces in southern Lebanon." He stressed that "the Lebanese position towards the international forces operating in the south hasn’t changed and condemns any assaults to international military personnel who came to Lebanon on a peace mission. Any attack on them is considered an attack against Lebanon and its people." Williams released a statement after the meeting saying: I had a very good meeting with President Mikati, where we discussed both my recent visit to New York and the discussions in the Security Council on Lebanon. I took the opportunity to convey to President Mikati and the Lebanese people the best wishes on the occasion of the holy month of Ramadan. I think it's sad, during the holiest month for Muslims that many of the peoples in the Arab world suffer at the hands of governments that do not listen to their people. I also discussed with Mikati, the recent explosion which targeted some UNIFIL forces on the 26th of July. I reiterated France's great concern because of the explosion as well as the concern of all the countries participating in UNIFIL. I think it is essential that the Lebanese government should take practical and strict measures with regards to this type of incident. First of all the perpetrators must be arrested as well as the ones who committed the previous attacks which targeted the Italian forces on the 27th of May and bring them to justice. He expressed to the Prime Minister his concern on the movement of the UNIFIL convoys, which must be fully coordinated with the Lebanese army and internal security forces to avoid any attacks. Question: Did you express your concern regarding the assault that occurred on Monday at El Wazzani? Answered: With regard to El Wazzani, this incident was disturbing but fortunately no one was hurt in on either side, however the bad thing is that we can not accept a similar incident as it could escalate from a small incident to a large conflict in merely a few hours. I will be meeting soon with General Bonvanti deputy commander of UNIFIL to see the conclusions regarding Monday's incident, and how to avoid similar incidents. Question: You stressed that there are governments which do not listen to its people, how concerned are you about the situation in Syria with regards to that? Answered: I think you can return to the statement of the Secretary-General of the United Nations about the events in Hama.