Sanafir

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Sanafir
Sanafir satellite image
Sanafir satellite image
Waters Strait of Tiran ,
Red Sea
Geographical location 27 ° 56 '2 "  N , 34 ° 41' 56"  E Coordinates: 27 ° 56 '2 "  N , 34 ° 41' 56"  E
Sanafir (Egypt)
Sanafir
length 8.7 km
width 5.9 km
surface 33 km²
Highest elevation Raʾs Ṣināfīr
49  m
Residents uninhabited
Map of the Tiran Strait, with Sanafir to the east
Map of the Tiran Strait, with Sanafir to the east

Sanafir ( Arabic جزيرة صنافير, DMG Ǧazīrat Ṣanāfīr ) is a Saudi island in the Red Sea a few kilometers southeast of the entrance to the Gulf of Aqaba . Together with the neighboring island of Tiran to the west, it still belongs to the Egyptian Ras Mohammed National Park .

geography

The island is part of the Strait of Tiran . Today the approximately 33 km² large island, like Tiran, belongs to the Ras Mohammed National Park . The island is about nine kilometers from mainland Saudi Arabia ( Raʾs al-Qaṣba ), and about 23 km from Egypt ( Sinai Peninsula ). The neighboring island of Tiran is 2.8 km west of Sanafir, separated from it by the Meeresalq al-Qarūš strait . The reef Šaʿb Abū Tinūn lies between the two islands .

In the east of the island there are numerous jagged limestone hills, but the highest, the 49 meter high Raʾs Ṣināfīr , is located near the southwest end of the island.

history

The affiliation of Tiran and Sanafir has long been disputed between Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

In 1906, Great Britain took control of the islands in a treaty with the Ottoman Empire . The Egyptian claims to Tiran and Sanafir were based on these. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, stated that it leased the two islands to Egypt in 1950 in order to prevent an occupation by Israel. On May 22nd, 1967, the Strait of Egypt was blocked with the help of the islands, which triggered the Six Day War for Israel . As during the Suez Crisis in 1956, Israel occupied the islands and retained control until 1982, when they withdrew from Sinai. Thereafter, 1900 members of the Egyptian military and a dozen Americans of the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) were stationed on Tiran . The definitive sovereignty over Tiran and Sanafir was deliberately left in the dark by Egypt and Saudi Arabia, due to their geostrategic importance as Israel's only access to the Red Sea.

On April 9, 2016, the Egyptian government announced that it would officially cede control of the islands to Saudi Arabia. This led to protests against the government in Egypt. The protesters viewed the handover as a sale of Egyptian territory. The handover to Saudi Arabia was temporarily stopped by an Egyptian court on June 21, 2016, as the sale of Egyptian land is prohibited by the constitution. In the second instance, on September 20, 2016, an appeals court in Cairo allowed the surrender. The government had argued that Egypt never owned the islands, only managed them. At the end of December 2016, the Egyptian government under President Abd al-Fattah as-Sisi prepared the return to Saudi Arabia.

At the beginning of 2017, the Egyptian Supreme Court ruled that the islands of Tiran and Sanafir remain Egyptian territory and that the assignment or return to Saudi Arabia by President Abd al-Fattah as-Sisi is inadmissible.

At the beginning of April 2017, a special court for express proceedings in Cairo "conceded" the judgment of the highest administrative court, which had forbidden the handover in January. On June 14, 2017, the Egyptian parliament approved the handover. The handover of the islands of Tiran and Sanafir to Saudi Arabia can now be implemented.

With the Neom project a crossing over the Strait of Tiran with a bridge between the islands of Tiran and Sanafir is planned. The bridge would create a land connection from North Africa to the Arabian Peninsula and thus to the Middle East.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ SPIEGEL ONLINE, Hamburg Germany: Egypt: Court stops transferring the island to Saudi Arabia. In: SPIEGEL ONLINE. Retrieved June 21, 2016 .
  2. ^ A b c Paul-Anton Krüger: The king's new islands . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung, April 12, 2016.
  3. ↑ Robert Priewasser: Tiran Iceland and Straits of Tiran. Unexplained Sovereignty over an Island in the Context of the Arab-Israeli Conflict . Akademikerverlag, Saarbrücken 2013
  4. ↑ Al-Sisi "gives away" islands to Saudi Arabia - Egyptians are angry. Egypt "gives away" islands to Saudi Arabia. In: SZ.de. Editorial Board of Süddeutsche Zeitung, April 11, 2016, accessed on April 17, 2016 : "The cabinet in Cairo announced on Saturday that it wanted to transfer sovereignty over the two islands to Saudi Arabia."
  5. ^ Egypt: Court stops transferring islands to Saudi Arabia shz.de, June 21, 2016.
  6. ^ Egyptian court approves transfer of Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia Middle East Eye, September 29, 2016.
  7. ^ Egypt's government approves transfer of islands to Saudis . AP, December 30, 2016.
  8. ↑ Sisi is not allowed to cede islands . , Tagesschau.de, January 16, 2017.
  9. ↑ Is the Palestinians about to leave? faz.net, December 16, 2017.
  10. ↑ Egyptian court allows transfer of islands to Saudi Arabia , euronews.com, April 3, 2017
  11. ↑ Ex-Siemens boss is to plan futuristic megacities for Saudi Arabia . In: sueddeutsche.de . October 24, 2017. Retrieved October 25, 2017.