Study shows Saudi sovereignty over Tiran and Sanafir islands

CAIRO – 6 June 2017: A recent study has proven Saudi Arabia's lawful control over the Tiran and Sanafir islands in the Red Sea, announced Egyptian constitutional law expert Salah Fawzi on Tuesday.

A long debate has persisted over the sovereignty of the Tiran and Sanafir islands, which Egypt's President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi transferred to Saudi Arabia in an agreement in April 2016.

Fawzi announced in a press statement that the new study was based on a number of maps, documents and new research, asserting that the demarcation of the border agreement between Egypt and Saudi Arabia was signed in accordance with international conventions.

On the same topic, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) recently published 775,000 documents on its website dating back to the Israeli occupation of the Sinai Peninsula, which were declassified in 1995 by former U.S. president Bill Clinton.

Among these documents are satellite images taken from 1968-1971 depicting Israeli military activities in Tiran and Sanafir. In these records, the two islands are described as “Saudi territory occupied by Israel.”

In 2016, the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) ruled against the Egyptian-Saudi Arabian maritime border agreement under which the Tiran and Sanafir islands were transferred to the Gulf country.

However, the Court of Urgent Matters annulled the SAC's ruling giving parliament the chance to discuss the agreement.

A team of lawyers defending Egyptian sovereignty of the islands presented documents showing Egypt’s control over the territory dating back to 1906, at the time of the Ottoman Empire.

Tiran and Sanafir are located in the narrow entrance to the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea. Egyptian officials say they belong to Saudi Arabia and have been under former Egyptian control only because Riyadh requested Cairo protect them in 1950.