BEIRUT: Senior US State Department official David Hale arrives in Beirut Tuesday to voice Washington's "concern" over the worsening social and political situation in Lebanon.

Under-secretary for political affairs Hale, the third-highest ranking State Department official, will travel to Beirut from April 13-15, the department said in a statement.

"Under-Secretary Hale will press Lebanese officials and party leaders to come together and form a government capable of and committed to implementing economic and governance reforms," the statement said. "He will underscore America's concerns with the worsening socio-economic conditions throughout the country and the political impasse that is contributing to the deteriorating situation."

Lebanon is in the midst of its worst financial crisis since the 1975-90 Civil War.

Endless political deadlock, as well as alleged corruption and negligence, have given way to the financial slump now sounding a death knell for a fragile middle class.

Since 2019, the Lebanese pound has lost more than 85 percent of its value against the dollar on the black market, and prices have soared.

Yet authorities have done little to stem a crisis compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic and by last year's port blast that cost more than 200 lives and ravaged swaths of Beirut.

Political sources in Beirut say Hale is also expected to discuss the stalled indirect negotiations with Israel over disputed maritime borders after caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab approved a decree that officially expands Lebanons claim in its maritime border dispute with Israel.

Diab, caretaker Public Works and Transport Minister Michel Najjar and caretaker Defense Minister Zeina Akar Adra signed the document that will formally lay claim to an additional 1,430 square kilometers on top of the Exclusive Economic Zone in disputed waters in the Mediterranean.

The document was referred to President Michel Aoun for his signature before being submitted to the United Nations to register the new coordinates.

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