Transfer of strategic Tiran, Sanafir islands from Egypt to Saudi Arabia finalized

With blessing from the United States, the two strategic and disputed islands of Tiran and Sanafir, located at Tiran Strait between Egypt’s Sinai and the Arabian Peninsula at the southern entrance to Aqaba Gulf in the Red Sea, were transferred to Saudi Arabia after Israel expressed its non-objection to the transfer process.

The final transfer was completed on Friday during US President Joe Biden’s tour to the Middle East countries of Saudi Arabia, Palestine and Israel. “We concluded a historic deal that — to transform a flashpoint at the heart of the Middle East wars into an area of peace,” said Biden after his meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Friday. The transfer process started six years ago by Egypt under the leadership of President Abdel Fattah El Sisi despite strong objections from a large number of Egyptians.

The two inhabited islands are quite vital for international maritime trade navigation, where the Red Sea connects with the Aqaba Gulf. The importance of the strait was one of the reasons that led Israel to launch its war against Egypt in June 1967 when the latter announced in May 1967 that it closed the Tiran Strait and prevented Israeli ships from going through the Aqaba Gulf. That is why, when both Egypt and Israel signed the peace treaty at Camp David in 1979, it was agreed that multinational peacekeeping keepers would be stationed there.

Saudi Arabia was handed control over the two islands six years ago when the Egyptian authorities announced that both President Sisi and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) agreed during their meeting on July 30, 2015, to demarcate the maritime borders between both countries. On April 7, 2016, Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz paid Egypt an official visit that lasted for several days, during which President Sisi handed over the two islands to Saudi Arabia as per a deal signed between the two countries on April 8, 2016. During the Saudi monarch’s visit, 21 cooperative agreements were signed between the two countries, including an agreement to establish a Saudi-Egyptian investment fund with SAR 60 billion.

The treaty between both countries ignited the Egyptian public’s anger and ignited criticism against the government, as a great number of Egyptian activists, journalists, politicians, geologists, and citizens opposed the government’s decision and decided to take to the streets to protest the transfer in April 2016, despite a ban on demonstrations. Several people were arrested, and then a few days later they were released. Egyptians opposed to the transfer also called for holding a public referendum on handing over the islands to Saudi Arabia in accordance with the Egyptian constitution; however, the government rejected the call and insisted on Saudi sovereignty over the two islands, saying that handing over the two islands requires only approval from the Egyptian parliament, whose majority has been made up of President Sisi’s supporters since 2015.

How did the Egyptian government justify the transfer of the islands to Saudi Arabia?

On April 14, 2016, President Sisi held a large meeting with a number of Egyptian journalists, intellectuals, lawmakers, youths, politicians, and other representatives from different sectors to defend the Egyptian-Saudi deal. “The political and security situations that existed for a long period of time made it necessary for Egypt to secure the two islands,” he was quoted as saying by a statement from the Egyptian presidency.

Sisi said that the demarcation deal between Egypt and Saudi Arabia depended on a presidential decree issued on May 2, 1990, and was sent to the United Nations.

In the same meeting, then-Prime Minister Sherif Ismail said that the delimitation agreement that took place in 1906 between the Ottoman Empire and Egypt did not deal with a demarcation of maritime borders, but rather the land borders from the Mediterranean to Taba, the presidency statement added.  Ismail also added that the late King Saud bin Abdulaziz had asked Egypt in January 1950 to protect the two islands, as Riyadh feared military attacks after Israel occupied them at that time. But “on April 12 and 17, 1957, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia sent two letters to the United Nations confirming its sovereignty over them. However, they [the two islands] were occupied in 1967 until Egypt regained its administration [over them] in accordance with the peace agreement [Camp David agreement] signed on March 29, 1979, provided that they [Tiran and Sanafir] shall locate in Zone C,” where only Egyptian civilian police and international peacekeepers were allowed to be stationed.

In 1990, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry sent the United Nations a letter indicating the subordination of the two islands to the Kingdom following extensive meetings in which representatives of various relevant Egyptian institutions and ministries and legal experts participated, Ismail said.

Historical documents

In a meeting with the Egyptian parliament in June 2017, Egyptian researcher and border demarcation expert Heidi Farouk revealed that the two islands are Egyptian, as she was assigned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the General Intelligence in 2006 to research the ownership of the Tiran and Sanafir islands. “We studied 75 documents, and all documents prove that Tiran and Sanafir are Egyptian,” she said, adding that all the documents in the British and American archives confirm that the two islands are Egyptian and part of the Sinai Peninsula, and not affiliated with Saudi Arabia. She also said that she had handed the documents to the Egyptian authorities during late President Hosni Mubarak’s era proving Egypt’s sovereignty over the islands.

Legal battle in Egypt

Some Egyptian activists and lawyers sued the Egyptian government for handing the two Red Sea islands over to Saudi Arabia. In June 2016, the Egyptian Administrative Court annulled the transfer deal of the two islands between Egypt and Saudi Arabia. However, in December of the same year, a Cairo Court of Urgent Matters upheld the deal.

Later, in January 2017, the High Administrative Court of the State Council stated that the deal was null and void. In April 2017, the Cairo Court of Urgent Matters annulled the High Administrative Court’s ruling

Despite the courts’ contradictory rulings, Egypt’s official gazette, Al Waqa’e Al Masryia, published on August 17, 2017, President Sisi’s ratification of the deal to make it come into force on the following day of the publication. In Egypt’s constitution, any decree, decision or law shall be published in the official gazette to be enacted.

In March 2018, the Egyptian Supreme Constitutional Court annulled all these contradictory rulings, saying such a deal is a “political act” that is conducted by the executive authority and is subject to the oversight of the legislative authority. The ruling of the Supreme Constitutional Court was given after President Sisi issued in April 2017 a decree in which he was given the authority to appoint the heads of the judicial bodies.

In the end, the Egyptian government handed the two islands over to Saudi Arabia. This transfer was finalized on Friday during Biden’s current visit to Jeddah, where he welcomed the deal, announcing that the multinational peacekeepers, including the US troops, will depart the islands by the end of this year, as agreed upon with the Saudi side.

The completion of the deal was made after Israel did not oppose the transfer process. Israeli sources told AFP that Israel has no objection to the transfer of the two disputed islands from Egypt to Saudi Arabia. Transferring the islands to the Kingdom has been seen as the first step toward normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

More than three weeks ago, ahead of finalizing the transfer deal, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman visited Egypt, and both sides signed a number of agreements worth $8 billion in investments, as was announced by the Egyptian presidency. In March 2022, Saudi Arabia announced that it deposited $5 billion in the Egyptian Central Bank.

The two islands were included on a map published by Saudi Arabia for the new Saudi city of NEOM, which was announced by MBS in October 2017 in the northwest of Kingdom, where he plans to establish an economic zone with $500 billion, the newspaper Egypt Independent reported.