A multinational peacekeeping force will leave a strategic Red Sea island by the end of the year, the US says, possibly boosting opportunities for future contact between Saudi Arabia and Israel. The White House has announced that peacekeeping forces, including US soldiers, will leave the strategic Red Sea island of Tiran by the end of the year, possibly boosting opportunities for future contact between Israel and Saudi Arabia. “Thanks to months of quiet, persistent diplomacy, we finalized an agreement to move international peacekeepers from Tiran Island in the Red Sea and transform an area that once fueled wars into a future hub of peaceful tourism and economic development,” the US president said. Joe. Biden said at a summit in Saudi Arabia on Saturday after the move was first announced on Friday. Egypt ceded the two small Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir, which are uninhabited but of key strategic value, to Saudi Arabia in 2016. But their territorial status must be ratified by Israel before sovereignty can be transferred. The decision to withdraw the peacekeepers could help resolve the difficult regime stemming from their location and turbulent history and build trust between Israel and Saudi Arabia – two US allies now taking incremental steps Washington hopes that one day they will lead to full diplomatic ties.
Who has a territorial claim to the islands?
The islands have been under Egyptian rule since 1950. Israeli troops invaded the islands during the 1956 Suez Crisis that came after Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the canal, which was crucial for trade between Europe and Asia. Egypt briefly regained control for about a decade, but the islands – along with the Sinai Peninsula – were retaken by Israel after the 1967 war. Under the 1978 Camp David peace treaty, Israel returned control of the Sinai, Tiran and Sanafir to Egypt. In 2016, Egypt ceded the islands, located east of the Sharm el-Sheikh resort, to Saudi Arabia.
Why did Egypt cede control of the islands to Saudi Arabia?
President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s controversial decision in April 2016 to hand over territorial sovereignty to Riyadh sparked nationalist protests in Egypt, which were quickly quelled. Critics have accused El Sisi of ceding the islands in exchange for Saudi aid and investment. The government maintained that the islands were originally Saudi Arabia but were leased to Egypt in the 1950s. Egyptian courts issued a series of contradictory rulings before the Supreme Constitutional Court ruled in favor of the handover. It is worth noting that in 1990 the former president of Egypt Hosni Mubarak voluntarily ceded control of the two islands to Saudi Arabia. It took two decades, in 2010, for Riyadh to publish its maritime baseline to the United Nations to claim its sovereignty, to which Egypt agreed.
What is the strategic importance of the two islands?
When did Saudi Arabia first stake a claim to the islands?
Saudi Arabia’s first claim to the islands was made by King Saud bin Abdulaziz in 1957 and was backed by the US. At the request of the US ambassador in Riyadh at the time, Saudi Arabia released a statement in 1968 again staking its claim to the islands and pledging free sea passage should they fall into their hands.
What human presence is there on the islands?
As part of the demilitarization of Sinai after the Camp David accord, Cairo was not allowed to station troops on the islands, where only peacekeepers were stationed as part of the so-called Multinational Force and Observers. Tiran – which hosts a small airfield for peacekeepers – is about 61 square kilometers (24 sq mi), while Sanafir, to the east, is only about half that size. The islands’ waters are occasionally visited by divers for their coral reefs.
