by ABAYOMI AZIKIWE
Territory has been under administrative control of the North African state since 1906
As early as 1954, Egypt claimed its sovereignty over Tiran and Sanafir before the United Nations Security Council, stating that the islands were part of the delimitation of territory dividing Egypt from the Ottoman Empire in 1906. The decision to hand over the two islands is clearly related to the financial support provided by Riyadh to Egypt in recent years.
Saudi Arabia has been given two islands which have been under Egyptian control since the early 20th century.
President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has endorsed the transfer of ownership of Tiran and Sanafir located on the southern edge of the Gulf of Aqaba.
The ceding of the two islands has prompted protests in Egypt since March 2016 when the idea was first made public by El-Sisi. An Egyptian Supreme Court decision rejected the proposal to relinquish ownership of the islands to Saudi Arabia ruling that Sanafir and Tiran were part of its national territory.
However, in June, the majority in the Parliament of Egypt sided with El-Sisi sending the legislation to the president for ratification. El-Sisi maintains that Egypt will still administer the islands although ownership will be turned over to Saudi Arabia.
Former Egyptian leaders Mohamed Naguib, Gamal Abdel Nasser and the other Free Officers, took control of the government on July 23, 1952 overthrowing the monarchy. After consolidating power in 1954 with the removal of Naguib who was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Nasser two years later in 1956 nationalized the Suez Canal Company, which was controlled by Britain and France.
In the immediate aftermath of the seizure of the canal, Egypt was invaded by Britain, France and Israel in an attempt to overthrow the government to replace Nasser with an administration that would be compliant to western imperialist interests. Nonetheless, the United States administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower opposed the intervention and threatened to wreck London financially if the European and Israeli forces were not withdrawn.
Eisenhower viewed the move by his European counterparts as an attempt to reassert their colonial status during the post-World War II period. Washington had solidified its role as the sole dominant imperialist state after 1945 and was seeking to develop relations with emerging independent nations in Africa and Asia as a counterweight to the rapidly growing influence of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the People’s Republic of China.
As early as 1954, Egypt had claimed its sovereignty over Tiran and Sanafir before the United Nations Security Council stating that the islands were part of the delimitation of territory dividing Egypt from the Ottoman Empire in 1906. During WWII Egyptian troops were stationed on the islands in order to protect the Suez Canal.
The decision to raise the issue of sovereignty over the two islands is clearly related to the financial support provided by Riyadh to Egypt in recent years. El-Sisi, a former Field Marshall in the Egyptian military, led the coup against the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) government of President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.
Morsi, who still remains imprisoned four years after the coup, was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood which backed the FJP. The military takeover was never labeled as a coup by the U.S. under the administration of President Barack Obama.
Pambazuka for more