Tiran Island

• 16 / 5 / 2023

Tiran Island (and some sources mention it as Theran) is an island temporarily under the administration of Egypt until the announcement of the completion of its handover to Saudi Arabia. It is uninhabited, located at the entrance to the Strait of Tiran that separates the Gulf of Aqaba from the Red Sea has an area of 61.5 km2, and is about 2.5 km away from its neighbor Sanafir island. The island is administratively in the midst of its transition from dependence on Egypt to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia based on the maritime boundary delimitation agreement signed between the two countries on April 8, 2016, which recognized the dependency of the island on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. There is a small airport on the island to provide logistical support to the UN peacekeeping forces. The island is characterized by islands and floating reefs. It is also a destination for diving lovers for the serenity of its water and the beauty of its coral formations, and although it is located at the entrance to the Strait of Tiran, the sea navigation lines pass from its west in front of Sharm el-Sheikh, because the formation of the seabed to its East and the nearby Sanafir Island makes navigation impossible, but it was once a point of trade between India and East Asia and had a Byzantine station for collecting goods customs.

Israel occupied the island in 1956 as part of the events related to the triple aggression and again in the events related to the 1967 war and withdrew from it in 1982 as part of the Camp David agreement. After the Israeli withdrawal, the island returned to Egyptian protection and administration and currently has multinational international forces in accordance with the Camp David Agreement and the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty and its signing in Area C.

The kingdom of Saudi Arabia demanded Egypt to subordinate the island and its neighbor Sanafir on more than one occasion.on April 8, 2016, the Egyptian government and Saudi Arabia signed a maritime boundary delimitation agreement between the two countries, according to the terms of which the island is located within the Saudi maritime borders. on April 8, 2016, the two countries signed a maritime boundary delimitation agreement between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which recognized the dependency of the island and its neighbor Sanafir island to Saudi Arabia. on June 14, 2017, the Egyptian parliament approved the agreement, and then ratified by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on June 17, 2017, and published in the Official Gazette in August 17, 2017. This is after a wide debate over the sovereignty of the two islands between the two countries. With the completion of ratification and publication, it remains only for both countries to exchange letters of ratification, and then the agreement will enter into force, and then the secretary-general of the United Nations will be notified in accordance with the provisions of Article 102 of the Charter of the United Nations. However, the Administrative Court of Justice issued its ruling on June 21, 2016 invalidating the signing of the agreement, and was supported by the appeals Examination Department of the Supreme Administrative Court by its ruling issued on January 16, 2017, and this judicial path was offset by judicial rulings of a parallel judicial path, represented by the ruling of the court of urgent matters issued on April 2, 2017 to drop the reasons for the ruling of the Supreme Administrative Court and the continuation of the agreement, and on June 21, 2017, the execution of both judgments of the two judicial tracks was temporarily suspended, pending the resolution of the conflict of judicial judgments. The agreement was approved by the Egyptian parliament on June 14, 2017, and ratified by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on June 17, 2017. It was published in the official gazette on August 17, 2017, and on March 3, 2018, the Supreme Constitutional Court ruled that all contradictory rulings issued by the Council of state (the Administrative Judiciary Court, the Supreme Administrative Court) and the court of urgent matters were not taken into account in the maritime boundary demarcation case between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which means that the maritime boundary demarcation agreement between Egypt and Saudi Arabia will continue to apply and its legal position will not change.

Naming

Opinions differed about the naming of the island, some said that its ancient name among the Arabs is "Taran", and some said that the name comes from the plural of the word" ter", which in Arabic dialects means the wave of the sea. While there is another opinion that the origin of the word "bulls" is the plural of the word "bull".

History

The historian Malchus the Philadelphian saw in his history that "Iotaba" is the island of Taran, and Yaqut Al-Hamwi said in his description of Taran island in his time, he said, "an island in the sea of qalzum between qalzum and Ayla, inhabited by a people of naughty people, they are said to have two grandfathers, they can feed bread from those who pass by them, they have fish, they have no Plant, No Udder, no fresh water, their houses are broken ships, and they and if they are told:' what do you have in this country?' They said: belly belly, which is the homeland, the homeland, Abu Zayd said: In the sea of kalzam, between Ayla and kalzam, there is a place known as Taran, which is the most evil place in this sea, because it has a circulation of water at the foot of a mountain, if the wind falls on its peak, the wind breaks in two parts, so the boat is thrown between two divisions on this mountain facing each other, and the wind comes out of both of them one opposite the other, so the sea erupts on every ship that falls in that rotation.». Tiran may be the island of "Ayat AB" (Greek: Ἰωτάβη) mentioned by Procopius of Caesarea, which was an important station for maritime commercial transport in this region, in the year 473 ad an Arab ruler named Amur-kesos (Amur Qais) took control of the island and imposed taxes, but the Byzantine Empire after 25 years regained control of the island and granted the population autonomy and imposed taxes on goods exported to India, around 534 ad the Byzantines retook control of the island they refused to pay taxes. There is no mention of eyat AB island after the Islamic conquest which means that the island was depopulated in that era.

In modern history, specifically in 1967, Egyptian forces landed on the Tiran and Sanafir islands and closed the Strait of Tiran. this closure caused the outbreak of the 1967 war. during the war, Israeli forces took control of the Tiran and Sanafir islands and the two islands remained under Israeli control until 1982; Israeli forces were replaced by international multinational forces under the Camp David agreement.

Geography

Tiran Island is 6 km from the east coast of Sinai and about 2.5 km from Sanafir island, with an area of 80 km2, which is one of the floating reef islands. The water sources on the island are limited to rainwater and winter torrents that collect in the rock pits formed by rainwater and winter torrents by dissolving the rocks. The sea waters around the island in the direction of the Saudi coast are characterized by a shallow level, the water depth in them reaches from 10 to 20 meters, while they are bordered from the West and towards the Egyptian coasts by a deep navigational stream passing in front of Sharm el-Sheikh, and its depth in some places reaches more than 200 meters, which is the passage through which international navigation crosses.

Tiran Island, next to its neighbor Sanafir Island, makes three passages to and from the Gulf of Aqaba, the first of which is between the Sinai coast and Tiran Island, and closer to the Sinai coast, which is the most suitable for navigation with a depth of 290 meters and is called the "enterprise" passage, and the second is also between the Sinai coast and Tiran Island, but closer to the island, the "Grafton" passage, with a depth of only 73 meters, while the third is located between Tiran and Sanafir islands, with a depth of only 16 meters.

Coral reefs are scattered around the island in abundance, with which the marine life of rare fish flocks is active, and the waters of the island are one of the favorite destinations for diving enthusiasts. One of the most famous diving areas around the island is the reef area of the Strait of Tiran near the gharqana area, which tourists go to on cruises from the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt to sail around, dive and enjoy nature, and the gharqana area was named after a German merchant ship that had sunk as a result of a collision with coral reefs and that was in the Fifties of the twentieth century. The depth of the waters of the Gulf of Aqaba in the Tiran Island area is about 1800 meters, and there are rare species of sea creatures such as Napoleon fish and rare sea turtles, and it is also possible that sharks, sea Devils and Barracudas are found in the deeper waters.

the case of Tiran and Sanafir

The maritime boundary delimitation agreement between Egypt and Saudi Arabia has sparked a wide debate within Egyptian society in what was known as the Tiran and Sanafir issue, because of the consequences of the occurrence of Tiran Island and its neighbor Sanafir within the Saudi maritime borders, where there was a difference and controversy between the sects of the Egyptian people about this agreement, they were divided between opponents and supporters of its entry into force. Opponents filed a case to cancel this agreement before the Administrative Judiciary Court and this path ended with the decision of the Supreme Administrative Court invalidating this Agreement, and in parallel, supporters of the agreement filed a case before the court of urgent matters, and this path ended with dropping the reasons for the Supreme Administrative Court's ruling invalidating the signing of the agreement, and its continued validity, and with two contradictory court rulings, the Egyptian cabinet approved the agreement and referred it to the House of Representatives on December 29, 2016, which in turn approved it after a vote held in plenary session on June 14, 2017, and ratified by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as of June 24, 2017, and currently the agreement is still on display Before the Supreme Constitutional Court. On March 3, 2018, the Supreme Constitutional Court ruled that all contradictory rulings issued by the Council of State (the Administrative Judiciary Court, the Supreme Administrative Court) and the court of urgent matters should not be taken into account in the maritime boundary demarcation case between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which means that the maritime boundary demarcation agreement between Egypt and Saudi Arabia will continue to apply and its legal position will not change.

In December 2022, Egypt blocked the implementation of the deal due to disagreements over US military aid to Cairo, according to Israeli sources.