Egyptian gas gets US green-lit to Lebanon through Syria
ERBIL, KRG, Iraq (North Press) – TheUS granted a green light for piping the Egyptian gas to Lebanon through Jordan and Syria under a plan agreed up on between Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan and Syria in September 2021.
The US said Lebanon should not fear a US sanctions law over its plans to receive energy supplies from the region, in a statement yesterday, the office of Lebanese Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, said.
The US Ambassador Dorothy Shea handed Mikati a letter from the US Treasury Department “to answer some of the concerns the Lebanese authorities had regarding regional energy agreements that the United States helped facilitate between Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt,” the prime minister’s office added.
Lebanon, which is going through a deep financial crisis, is seeking to import energy from fellow Arab states to ease a sharp power shortage.
Those supplies have no other transit route except Syria, which is subjected to the US sanctions law.
Under the plan agreed up on between Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan and Syria, Egyptian gas would be piped to Lebanon through Jordan and Syria to help boost Lebanon’s power output.
However, due to complications in implementing the plan because of the US sanctions on the Syrian government, Lebanese officials called on Washington for an exemption.
Damascus has previously showed its readiness to cooperate in facilitating the gas transit into Lebanon.