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Egypt agrees to hand over disputed islands to Saudi Arabia
More than a dozen other accords, including a memorandum of understanding to set up an industrial zone in Egypt, were also announced. However, news of the agreement generated a storm on social media, with activists arguing that handing over the two islands was tantamount to a sell-off to the kingdom.
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The bridge is planned to cross the Strait of Tiran, at the same place where the prophet Moses is said to have parted the Red Sea, in order to bring his people out of slavery into the Promised Land.
“Even if Saudi Arabia is entitled to the islands … to hand them over to Saudi in this way, without consideration for Egyptians, showing no respect for their feelings, presence and even their pride in their nation?” television chat show host Wael El Ebrashy said on Sunday night. The transfer of the two islands, which are less than five miles from the coastlines of both countries, was the product of a six-year negotiation over maritime boundaries, officials said.
The daily Haaretz said Israel expressed its approval of the give-and-take during talks with the Egyptian side provided that freedom of navigation for Israeli ships through the area were guaranteed.
Low oil prices have contributed to Saudi Arabia’s change of approach.
In the document given to Israel, Saudi Arabia, which does not have formal relations with Israel, pledges to abide by the principles that have governed Israeli-Egyptian relations since their 1979 peace treaty, Haaretz reported. The agreement is subject to a vote in parliament, but critics insisted that a referendum should be held.
The decision, he said, was prompted by Cairo facing a Dollars 43-billion budget deficit, a sharp increase in its foreign debts, a high unemployment rate, a decline in the exchange rate of the Egyptian pound, and a security crisis in Sinai Peninsula, among other things.
In 1949, Saudi Arabia allowed Egypt to occupy the two islands “for defense purposes” following the establishment of the Israeli state.
One joke circulated on Facebook goes that in answer to the question of whether the islands are Egyptian, “if Morsi sold them, they’re Egyptian, but if Sisi sold them, they’re Saudi”. The Egyptian government says the two uninhabited islands – Tiran and Sanafir at the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba – are Saudi but have been in Egypt’s custody for protection since 1950.
The Saudi private sector has also appreciated the initiatives of the Saudi government and has launched a series of huge investment programs to establish mega companies which will serve in a variety of sectors, most importantly the companies based in the new Suez Canal, which the Egyptian administration is concentrating on.
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“Planners believe that tolls paid by millions of Muslim pilgrims on their way to holy sites in Saudi Arabia could make up for the expected cost of the bridge within seven-10 years”, noted Shay in a recent report published for the Institute for Policy and Strategy at the IDC. “The islands are Saudi, they were occupied by Israel and then returned to Egypt, which has handed them back to us”, Al-Jubeir said.