Last Thursday and for five-days, King Salman Bin Abdel
Aziz of Saudi Arabia visited Egypt for mutual cooperation between Egypt and his
country in different fields of development. On the investment side, the CEO of Saudi
Egyptian Construction Company (SECON), Darwish Hassanin declared that about 40
percent of the projects in the New Cairo Capital like residential apartments,
commercial services, sports club and green areas will be built on 86 acres by
the second quarter of this year (Daily News, SECON CEO). And another project Riyadh
SECON will contribute is the New Assiut media city that will raise the wages of
media earners. A total of 17 agreements are signed during this bilateral deals’
visit.
On the other hand, building a new bridge between Egyptian
lands and Saudi Arabia using Tiran and Sanafir islands opened new discussions
and retrieved back the history of Sykes-Pico Agreement between Britain and
France of Israel. The Sykes-Pico Agreement was secretly signed after World War
I between Britain and French government to determine the controlled partitions
of Ottoman Empire to both powers in 1916 (Jewish Virtual Library). This two
islands were under the international control of the two powers and the Arabs.
From this point, according to Egypt Independent “official
sources reports that the Egyptian President, El-Sisi proposed that the bridge
to be named The King Salman and Sykes-Pico Bridge (Egypt Independent, bridge). “The
23 kilometer-long bridge will start at Egypt’s Red Sea Island of Tiran then to
Ras AlSheikh Hamid in Saudi Arabia via Sanafir Island on the Red Sea” (TheCairo Post). This bridge will join the two countries by road and even the two
contents Asia and Africa over water. This opens another discussion about the
changing of geographical borders that are designed before in Sykes-Pico
Agreement and by uniting the Arab countries away from the foreign control nor
the Israeli intimidations.
Analysts reached a point of the proposed bridge is more
likely touching the Israeli national affairs more than Egyptians or Saudi
Arabian, because building this bridge will push the Egyptian national security
to control the passing of Israeli ships in the Red Sea as it’s their only
shipping lane. Today’s feed from different social network websites put another explanation
for that “According to Balfour Declaration, Egypt don’t have the authority to
put their army on this passing lane,” and fortunately building this bridge will
give Egypt the right for military presence. This right will end the last item
in 1978 Camp David Accords (Hammouda, Facebook). Hammouda added that there can
be another straight line way “via Aqaba bay” to build the bridge, however
passing by Tiran Island will make the bridge not a hanging one and this will
give Egypt the right to put their security in this place to protect its vital
area of national security.
“Working will begin by the mid of next year 2013 with budget of three Billion Dollars to build 50 kilometer bridge connecting between Aqaba bay and Tabuk” (El-Watan). This project was entrusted to the Egyptian minister of transportation, Gala Said, ten years ago and recommended by Major General Sameh Seif El Yazal, the Security and strategic expert, to easy the trading between two continents. Adding that passengers will take 20 minutes only in this trip.
