Egypt Defends Island Gift to Saudis

CAIRO (AP) -- Egypt's president on Wednesday sought to defuse a storm of opposition kicked off by his government's declared intention to hand over control of two strategic Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia, arguing that he did not surrender Egyptian territory.

President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi also reiterated Cairo's position that Egyptian security forces had nothing to do with the torture and killing of an Italian student abducted in Cairo, an incident that poisoned ties with Italy, which recalled its ambassador to protest what it called a lack of cooperation by Egyptian authorities in the investigation.

Egypt's government maintains that the islands of Tiran and Sanafir at the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba belong to Saudi Arabia, which asked Egypt in 1950 to protect them from Israel. Israel captured the islands in the 1967 Middle East war, but handed them back to Egypt under their 1979 peace treaty.

"We did not surrender our rights, but we restored the rights of others," el-Sissi said in comments broadcast live. "Egypt did not relinquish even a grain of sand."

"All the data and documents say nothing except that this particular right is theirs. Please let us not talk about this subject again. There is a parliament that you elected which will debate the accord. It will either ratify or reject it."

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He went on to complain that the Egyptians' chronic distrust of their leaders was pushing the country to "national suicide."

"You don't believe that there is a single patriotic man in the foreign ministry, the army or the intelligence agency? They are all bad people who are ready to sell off their country?" he asked rhetorically.

Cairo's decision to transfer custody of the islands to Saudi Arabia was announced when Saudi King Salman visited Egypt this week. During his stay, Salman pledged billions of dollars in aid and investment to Egypt, tempting critics to link the generous Saudi aid to the transfer of the islands.

Some of the criticism focused on el-Sissi, who acknowledged Wednesday that negotiations with the Saudis over the fate of the islands were conducted in secrecy to avoid unwanted media attention.

El-Sissi also denied that Egypt's security agencies were behind the killing of Giulio Regeni, the Italian doctoral student who disappeared on Jan. 25, the five-year anniversary of the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak, when police were out in force to prevent demonstrations. Regeni's body was found nine days later and bore signs of torture.

El-Sissi suggested that "evil folks" were behind the incident. He blamed the Egyptian media's handling of the case for the crisis in Egypt's "distinguished" relations with Italy.

The Egyptian leader has in the past accused unidentified parties of seeking to isolate Egypt and undermine its government by engineering Regeni's death.

Italy is Egypt's biggest trading partner in the EU and the two countries have been coordinating on their handling of the rise of Islamic militants in Libya, Egypt's western neighbor and Italy's former colony.

El-Sissi said Egypt, whose economy has suffered from years of unrest, could have taken advantage of the chaos in oil-rich Libya and invaded it to avenge the killing there last year of 21 Egyptian Christians by Islamic State militants.

"We cannot invade our friends there and usurp their land. It could have happened, but we said 'no,' and that's what my late mother had taught me: Never covet what belongs to others."

(KA)

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