Egypt court rejects Red Sea islands deal with Saudi Arabia

Egypt’s Administrative Court on Tuesday nullified a deal signed between Cairo and Riyadh in April on maritime border demarcation that placed the two Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir into the Saudi regional water.

Lawyer Khaled Ali, a leftist opposition figure who brought the case, told AFP the court’s decision “shows that the two territories are Egyptian. and can not be given away”.

According to MENA, the administrative tribunal said “the islands of Tiran and Sanafir are Egyptian and are within the country’s borders”.

The Egyptian government has administered them ever since but in April Mr Sisi abruptly announced they were being given back to Saudi Arabia.

The court said the reality on the ground shows that Egypt has long exercised full and uncontested sovereignty over the two islands.

While the verdict is not final, it could deal a blow to Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi’s government, which has eagerly argued that the agreement would bring economic benefits for Egypt.

The agreement, which was announced in April, caused protests in Egypt where many say they were taught at school that Tiran and Sanfir islands were Egyptian.

The Egyptian government said Saudi Arabia had legal and historic sovereignty over the islands, and it was simply returning the kingdom’s own territory to it, but the decision was met with protests and outrage. Thousands of people demonstrated in the streets and hundreds were later arrested in a police crackdown on activists.

The islands – captured by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War and returned to Egypt under the 1979 Camp David Accords – can be used to control access to the Israeli port of Eilat.

There was no immediate comment from the Saudi government on the court ruling.

The Egyptian parliament must approve the agreement to be valid.

The government, which is appealing the ruling, insists the islands always belonged to Saudi Arabia, which has provided billions of dollars in aid to Egypt since el-Sissi led the military’s 2013 ouster of the Islamist Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected president. The state can appeal the decision at a higher court. “Please, I don’t want anyone to talk about this any more”.

“This is a very important step”, said Khalid Ali, a prominent rights lawyer and former presidential candidate who brought the case against the government over the deal.