JEDDAH (AFP) – A peacekeeping force will leave a strategic Red Sea island by the end of the year, the White House says, potentially boosting opportunities for future contact between Saudi Arabia and the Zionist regime.
U.S. President Joe Biden said in remarks during his visit to Saudi Arabia, while a separate White House fact sheet specified the timeline.
The move appeared to be a precursor to formally transferring control of Tiran and another island, Sanafir, to Riyadh, a move analysts say could spur communication between the occupying regime and Saudi Arabia as they chart a possible path towards formal bilateral relations.
The two islands –- both barren and uninhabited –- have been a source of conflict in the past thanks to their key location at the entrance to the Gulf of Aqaba, on which Jordan’s only seaport and the occupying regime’s Eilat harbor are located.
Egypt ceded the islands, located east of its resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh, in 2016 to Saudi Arabia, which wants to develop them for tourism.
A senior Zionist official said late Thursday that the regime would have “no objection” to greenlighting Egypt handing over the islands to Saudi Arabia as a step towards any normalization of ties between Riyadh and the occupying regime.
Tiran -- which hosts a small airport for the peacekeepers -- measures about 61 square kilometers (24 square miles), while Sanafir, to the east, is only about half that size.
The islands were under Egyptian sovereignty from 1950, but were invaded by Zionist troops during the 1956 Suez Crisis that came after Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the canal that is key to trade between Europe and Asia.
Nasser’s 1967 closure of the Strait of Tiran, which cut off maritime access to Eilat and Aqaba, precipitated the Six Day War, after which the occupying regime occupied the Sinai Peninsula and the two small islands.