Saudi FM: Red Sea islands have returned to the kingdom

Saudi FM: Red Sea islands have returned to the kingdom: 

Saudi FM: Red Sea
islands have returned to the kingdom Fayette Advocate
http://fayetteadvocate.com/2016/04/saudi-fm-red-sea-islands-have-returned-to-the-kingdom/

Israeli pundits are scrutinizing the deal announced between Saudi Arabia and Egypt this week, seeking to determine the effect the arrangement, and in particular Egypt's handing over of two islands in the Straits of Tiran, will have on Israel's security.

King Salman of Saudi Arabia received Sunday 10 April, a triumphant welcome at the Egyptian Parliament.

In his six-minute address, King Salman also said that Saudi Arabia and Egypt have agreed to build a bridge linking the nations across the Red Sea and to work together to create a pan-Arab defense force. Israeli public radio cited sources in the Israeli foreign ministry as saying: "The issue of the Tiran and Sanafir islands is under legal consideration at the ministry".

Moves by the Egyptian government to hand two strategic Red Sea islands over to Saudi Arabia caused an angry reaction among opposition figures and social media users in Egypt on Sunday. "We are committed to what Egypt committed to before the global community".

Egypt took control of the islands in the early 1950s, when the Saudis handed them over to Egypt in order to "supervise" shipping in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. But the government now says that Saudi Arabia in 1950 merely placed the islands in Egypt's custody to defend them against possible attack by Israel.

"The Egypt-Saudi agreement changes the geopolitical situation", Mazel said.

With the Arab world in continuing turmoil since the "Arab Awakening" in 2011, the lengthy visit by Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud to Cairo and Egypt's president Abdel al-Fattah al-Sisi is being described as historic.

The agreement provoked an immediate backlash in Egypt, with thousands of Twitter users accusing Sisi of selling the islands.

Members of the royal Saudi entourage in Cairo confirmed the threat from Ankara, that if the Egyptian president continues to disapprove of the Turkish ruler and give him a hard time, Ankara would retaliate by raising more impediments to a rapprochement with Israel.

In the document given to Israel, Saudi Arabia, which does not have formal relations with Israel, pledges to abide by the principles that have governed Israeli-Egyptian relations since their 1979 peace treaty, Haaretz reported.