BICOM

Saudi Arabia has said that it will honour the terms of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty regarding two islands located at the mouth of the Red Sea, which Egypt has agreed to return to Saudi control after sixty years.

Tiran and Sanafir oversee access to the Red Sea and its seaports, including Eilat at Israel’s southern tip and Aqaba in neighbouring Jordan. In the 1950s, Saudi Arabia handed control of the uninhabited islands to Egypt, for fear of a potential Israeli attack. Israel did briefly take control of the islands during the 1956 Sinai Campaign and once again following the Six Day War in 1967, which left Israel in control of the entire Sinai Peninsula. Sinai and the islands were returned to Egypt in 1982 as part of the Egypt-Israel peace accord, which remains intact today. As part of the peace agreement, international observers, mainly US forces, which oversee adherence to the peace treaty, have been stationed on the islands.

Over the weekend, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and Saudi King Salman met in Cairo and announced more than a dozen agreements worth billions of pounds. They included relinquishing Egyptian control of Tiran and Sanafir, returning them to Saudi Arabia. Haaretz reported that Egypt informed Israel of the plan in advance of the announcement, and also updated Washington. Apparently, Israel’s government has no objection to the arrangement and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu briefed his security cabinet on the issue within the last two weeks.

Although Israel and Saudi Arabia do not share diplomatic ties, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir has said that Riyadh will adhere to the terms of the Egypt-Israel peace accord regarding the islands. He commented: “The commitments that Egypt approved [in the peace treaty] we are also committed to, including the stationing of an international force on the islands… We are committed to what Egypt committed to before the international community.”