صحيفة “يديعوت أحرونوت” الإسرائيلية
وزير الدفاع الإسرائيلي: مصر تنازلت عن تيران وصنافير مقابل 16 مليار
دولار
علي هذا الرابط
http://ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4790656,00.html
Ynetnews - news and
updates 24 hours
הפכו את ynet לאתר הבית
Israel News|Middle
East|World |Magazine|Jewish World|Opinion|Culture|Travel|Health &
Science|Business|Tech|Art|עברית
Weather:27Cאילת
Tel Aviv-Jaffa
Ynetnews on
TwitterYnetnews on Facebook
Photo: AFP
Tiran and Sanafir
Photo: AFP
Ya'alon: Israel
signed off on Egypt-Saudi deal over islands
Defense minister
says military appendix in Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty had to be reopened to
include the Saudis; Jerusalem also agreed to allow construction of bridge
connecting Saudi and Egypt.
Yoav Zitun,
Reuters|Published: 04.12.16 , 18:16
Defense Minister
Moshe Ya'alon admitted Tuesday that Israel has signed off on Egypt's move to
concede control over strategic islands in the Tiran Straits to Saudi Arabia.
Follow Ynetnews on
Facebook and Twitter
The islands of Tiran
and Sanafir, located at the southern entrance to the Gulf of Aqaba, will be
formally demarcated as being in Saudi waters under a treaty announced on
Saturday by Cairo, which has had de facto control over them since 1950. In
return for sovereignty over the Red Sea islands, Saudi will provide Egypt with
$16 billion in aid.
Ya'alon said the
military appendix in the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty had to be reopened as a
result of the agreement over the islands, which are located some 200 kilometers
south of Eilat.
Defense Minister
Moshe Ya'alon (Photo: Shaul Golan)
The United States
also signed off on the inclusion of Saudi Arabia in the appendix, as a
representative of the international peacekeeping force deployed to the Sinai
Peninsula as part of the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.
However, the Justice
Ministry said that "the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, including
its appendixes, has not been opened. To our understanding, as part of the
agreement between Egypt and Saudi Arabia there are arrangements meant to ensure
no violation is made and the continued application of the existing arrangements
and commitments in the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, as it relates to
the two islands. The entire issue is still being examined."
Israel has also
agreed to allow the construction of a bridge connecting Saudi Arabia to Egypt,
as part of the Saudi plan for the islands' development.
In 1967, Egypt
blocked the Strait of Tiran, a move that prompted Israel to launch the Six-Day
War. In its 1979 peace deal with Israel, Cairo promised to respect freedom of
shipping in Aqaba and Eilat
Ya'alon said Saudi
Arabia has given Israel written assurances the kingdom will guarantee Israel
freedom of passage in the Tiran Straits.
Eilat is Israel's
only port in the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea, while Aqaba is Jordan's sole
outlet there.
Israeli commercial
vessels use the Tiran Straits to get from the Eilat bay to the Red Sea and from
there to the Horn of Africa and to Asia, while the Israeli Navy sails from the
Mediterranean Sea through the Suez Canal to the Red Sea to conduct training on
a regular basis.
Senior diplomatic
officials said earlier this week that Egypt told Israel about its negotiations
with Saudi Arabia in advance, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had already
briefed the cabinet about the impending agreement two weeks ago.
The islands of Tiran
(forefront) and Sanafir (further back) (Photo: AFP)
MK Tzachi Hanegbi
(Likud), a long-time Netanyahu confidant, said the treaty would not threaten
Israel. "It relates to us and it does not bother us," Hanegbi, who
heads the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, told Army Radio.
"The Saudis,
who are committed to freedom of shipping under international law, will not harm
the essence of the agreement between Egypt and us in this regard, and freedom
of shipping in Aqaba and Eilat will remain as is."
For its part, Riyadh
is keeping a frosty posture to Israel.
"There will be
no direct relationship between the kingdom and Israel due to the return of
these islands," Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told Egypt's CBC
television on Sunday.
But in an apparent
allusion to Egyptian-Israeli relations, he added: "There is an agreement
and commitments that Egypt accepted related to these islands, and the kingdom
is committed to these."
Some Israeli
commentators suggested that the islands treaty might make it easier for
Islamist militants to reach the Sinai.
King Salman of Saudi
Arabia meets with Egyptian President al-Sisi in Cairo (Photo: EPA) (API)
King Salman of Saudi
Arabia meets with Egyptian President al-Sisi in Cairo (Photo: EPA)
Hanegbi dismissed this
as "paranoid anxiety" and welcomed the closing of ranks by Sunni
Muslim Arab states that share Israeli hostility to Shi'ite Muslim power Iran
and its Lebanese guerrilla ally Hezbollah, as well as to Sunni Islamist
insurgents racking the region.
"We have an
interest in expanding the cooperation in the Sunni axis, which is struggling
against the radical axis headed by Iran," said Hanegbi.
"The more the
Saudis, and the Gulf states in general, connect to the countries with which we
are at peace and create with them a strategic front against ISIS, Iran,
Hezbollah, against all the players that are our actual enemies, ultimately the
effect will be unifying and not weakening."
US reviewing Sinai
peacekeeping operations
The US military has
formally notified Egypt and Israel that it is reviewing peacekeeping operations
in the Sinai, including ways to use technology to do the job of some of the 700
US troops there.
Installed to monitor
the demilitarization of the Sinai under the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace accord,
the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) mission has come under increased
scrutiny over the past year after six peacekeepers were wounded by a roadside
bomb. Four US. soldiers were among them.
The United States
believes that the structure of the more than three-decade old operation may be
outdated.
"I don't think anyone's talking about a
(complete) withdrawal. I think we're just going to look at the number of people
we have there and see if there are functions that can be automated or done
through remote monitoring," said Navy Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon
spokesman.
Changing the MFO
mission could be a sensitive proposition to both Israel and Egypt.
Cairo sees the MFO
as part of a relationship with Israel that, while unpopular with many
Egyptians, brings it $1.3 billion in annual US defense aid, sweetening the
foreign-enforced demilitarization of their sovereign Sinai territory.
For the Israelis,
the MFO offers strategic reassurance, especially following Egyptian President
Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's toppling two years ago of an elected Islamist regime
hostile to the Jewish-majority state next door.
Among the options
being considered are use of remote sensors or surveillance to do some of the
work in the Sinai, the peninsula that lies between Israel, the Gaza Strip and
the Suez Canal.
"What we are
looking at is, this has been in existence for 30 years and the mission has
remained largely unchanged," Davis said.
"What we want
to be able to do is look at the core things that that mission provides and see
how we can leverage modern technologies, remote surveillance capabilities,
etc., to be able to carry out that mission."
Egyptian security
efforts in the Sinai have suffered major setbacks, including the Oct. 31
downing of a Russian airliner and Friday's bombing of two armored personnel
carriers that killed seven.
The Associated Press
contributed to this report.
פרסום ראשון: 04.12.16, 18:16
