clear

Creating new perspectives since 2009

Egypt won’t give up 'one grain of sand from Sinai,' insists foreign minister

June 25, 2019 at 12:32 am

Egypt will not renounce one grain of sand from the lands of the Sinai, the Egyptian foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry, said yesterday.

Shoukry’s remarks were Cairo’s first comment on the US-led Middle East deal, dubbed “Deal of the Century.”

“Egypt will take part in Bahrain’s conference this week on the Palestinian economic development in order to evaluate the proposed $50 billion so-called “Peace to Prosperity” plan,” Shoukry told Russia Today (RT), explaining that it was “important” for his country to participate in the event “to listen to this [American] proposition and evaluate it, but not to approve it.”

Bahrain is set to host a conference on 25-26 June in the capital Manama to discuss a US-led economic vision to be presented by the American President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, part of a wider plan to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

“We have the right to evaluate it, view it and develop a vision about it, but the final decision about it goes back to the main stakeholder – the Palestinian Authority,” Shoukry pointed out.

READ: UK arms deals gave Egypt the legitimacy it needed to kill Morsi

Responding to a question about a recent US initiative stipulating on introducing what it called “an alternative homeland for Palestinians in Sinai,” the minister stressed that his country would not waive “one bit, one grain of sand from the lands of Sinai.”

On Saturday, the White House announced details of the economic plan of the peace deal in a 95-page report, entitled “Peace for Prosperity.” The plan stipulated on establishing 179 infrastructure and business projects, as well as spending more than half of the $50 billion on the economically troubled Palestinian territories over ten years. The report added that the remainder of the fund would be split on the Palestinian refugees in Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan.

Kushner’s plan also comprised the construction of infrastructure projects including power, water and road connections in Egypt’s Sinai.

The “Deal of the Century” is a peace plan that was drawn up by the Trump administration and is said to be forcing Palestinians to make “unfair concessions” to Israel, including the status of occupied East Jerusalem and the right of return of the refugees.