The deal is part of financial support for Egypt announced during a visit in April by Saudi Arabia’s King Salman.
Advertisement
The two islands, located in the Red Sea to the east of the Sinai Peninsula and the west of the Arabian Peninsula, have previously been administered by Egypt but Saudi Arabia has also laid claim to them.
As reported by Egyptian newspaper Al-Youm Al-Sabaa via Ynet News, the meeting was one of the several meetings the two had in the past six years concerning the issue of the maritime boundaries.
CAIRO (AP) – Saudi Arabia’s king addressed the Egyptian parliament on Sunday, the fourth day of a visit that saw the oil-rich kingdom pledge billions of dollars in investment and aid to Egypt but sparked an outcry over Cairo’s intention to surrender sovereignty over two Red Sea islands to the Saudis.
Khaled Ali, a prominent rights lawyer and a former presidential candidate, has filed a court case to demand that the Egyptian-Saudi agreement on the islands be annulled on the grounds that it violated Egypt’s constitution.
Saudi King Salman, who is visiting Cairo, confided to his host Egyptian president Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi that Erdogan had made it clear that he would not finally fix Ankara’s ties with Israel until Sisi came forward to shake his hand, stopped being hostile and turned a new page in their relations. Some lawmakers waved the kingdom’s green flag, while others chanted “all of Egypt greets you” or “welcome!” Lawmakers also recited poetry praising the Saudi monarch. Not mentioned publicly was Saudi Arabia’s alliance with Qatar and Turkey, both of which are accused by Egypt of supporting Islamist groups.
The second is that Egypt’s economy has been struggling since the ouster of long-time leader Hosni Mubarak in 2011, and the current president Abdel al-Fattah al-Sisi has been unable to turn the economy around, or to deal effectively with the entrenched corruption.
Saudi Arabia has been a key backer of Sisi since the overthrow of Morsi, whose Muslim Brotherhood movement was viewed by Riyadh with suspicion.
He said the planned bridge over the Red Sea will not only “connect Asia and Africa” but it will be a “gate to Africa”, boosting exports of the two countries and creating job opportunities for people in the region. Last week the deputy head of the Saudi-Egyptian Business Council told Reuters that Saudi businessmen are investing around $4 billion in projects in Egypt and have already deposited 10 percent of that sum in Egyptian banks.
Meanwhile, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir declared that it “will honor all of Egypt’s legal and worldwide commitments in regard to the two islands” in a move seen by Israeli media as an attempt to appease Israel. But authorities in Cairo insisted that they had always been Saudi territory, despite being under Egyptian control since 1950.
Advertisement
A memorandum of understanding was also signed between the Saudi Public Investment Fund and the Egyptian International Cooperation Ministry to set up an economic free-zone in Sinai.
