Egypt’s supreme court halts decisions on giving Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia

CAIRO // Egypt’s top court has temporarily suspended all rulings on a deal to give two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia. The supreme constitutional court said yesterday that it would decide which agency had jurisdiction.

Courts have issued contradictory rulings since Cairo signed a controversial deal with Saudi Arabia in April last year to transfer the islands to Riyadh.

The government says the two islands, Tiran and Sanafir, belong to Saudi Arabia but had been leased to Egypt in the 1950s. Parliament last week approved their transfer.

But since the agreement was announced 14 months ago, two administrative courts have ruled to annul the deal, arguing that the islands belong to Egypt.

But a third court ruled that the deal should go ahead and that the other two tribunals had no jurisdiction over it.

“The constitutional court, in cases of contradictory judgments, looks at who has jurisdiction,” spokesman Ragab Saleem said. “It might see one side has jurisdiction, or that neither side has. It might be under the jurisdiction of another entity.”

Mr Saleem said the court was not examining whether the deal was constitutional and did not give a time for the decision.

Yesterday’s decision applies only to the two courts involved, not to parliament, which has approved the deal.

The deal caused street protests last year from many Egyptians who say their sovereignty over the islands dates back to a treaty from before Saudi Arabia was founded.

The government has insisted the islands were always Saudi but placed under Egyptian pro- tection in the early 1950s amid Arab-Israeli tension.

The constitutional court is to open hearings next month on a request by the government.

President Abdel Fattah El Sisi said late on Tuesday that the issue had been concluded and his government had nothing to hide, referring to accusations that Egypt was giving up the islands in return for billions of dollars in Saudi aid.

“The rights of others must be restored,” Mr El Sisi said.