Saudi Arabia’s development of its strategy in the Red Sea

Prepared by the Ambassador: Bilal Al-Masry – Former Egyptian Ambassador to Angola, Sao Tome and Principe, and Niger.

There is an integrated Saudi strategy regarding the Red Sea that the Kingdom applies persistently and strictly, the general lines of which are evident from the totality of events and developments in which the forces of the Royal Court and the military, security and foreign institutions have combined to achieve it at the highest possible level between two parallel lines, which are the financial and financing strength of the Kingdom and the strength of the last seven countries. On the Red Sea, whose identities vary or are in conflict between the Islamic and African Arab identity and the Hebrew Zionism. Through the following statement, the three main parts of the Saudi strategy can be clarified as follows:

The twelfth session of the permanent Saudi Sudanese committee for the exploitation of mineral resources convened in the Red Sea

On January 17, 2017, a workshop on “Environmental Vision” for the Mineral Resources of the Red Sea was held at the headquarters of the Sudanese Ministry of Mining in Khartoum with the participation of members of the Saudi / Sudanese Permanent Joint Committee for the Exploitation of the Red Sea Mineral Resources known for short as “ Atlantis 2 ” ”The Sudanese Ministry of Mining organized this workshop in cooperation with the Manafea International Company, which holds the concession and license to extract minerals from the bottom of the Red Sea.

The Sudanese Minister of Mining, Muhammad al-Sadiq al-Karuri, said after his meeting with the Saudi delegation participating in the workshop, “The workshop aims to explore the capabilities of scientists in the environmental field and to provide guidance and advice to the company in the context of preparing to present a study on the environmental impact from the practical point of view of the project.” The minister noted the participation Experts and specialists in the environmental, mining and economic fields, and they will discuss seven working papers for the Atlantis 2 project  Among them are papers on project development stages, mineral resources, environmental policies and plans, the environment in the Red Sea, international experiences in the field of exploiting mineral resources from the interior of the Red Sea, and local standards for preserving the Red Sea ecosystem.

The holding of the aforementioned workshop was one of the decisions taken by the Saudi Sudanese Permanent Committee for the Exploitation of Natural Resources in the Rift Valley in the Red Sea Maritime Zone between the two countries, which was published by the Sudanese media and newspapers in Khartoum on November 19, 2016 on the Saudi side’s invitation to the Sudanese side to hold the second meeting. Ten years in Jeddah on November 22, 2016, in which the Sudanese side was headed by Al-Sadiq Al-Karuri, Minister of Mining, while the Saudi side was headed by Khalid bin Abdulaziz Al-Falih, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, and indicated that the two sides continued, through this committee, their previous discussions on means of using the resources of the Red Sea by the rift valley The project is known as 2  Atlantis, Which was included in the framework of an agreement signed by the governments of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Sudan on May 16, 1974 and related to the joint exploitation of the natural resources located at the bottom and under the Red Sea bed, and it is an agreement that falls into 17 articles of which Article 7 stipulates the establishment of a joint body entrusted with surveying, defining and planning the borders of the common area Between the two countries and to take the necessary steps to exploit the natural wealth and supervise its exploitation. Article 12 of it stipulates that the Saudi government shall provide the necessary funding to the joint body, provided that the Kingdom recovers these funds later from the production yield, and after this agreement, the joint body formed under this agreement contracted With the German company Propag, to develop technical studies based on it, the wealth present at the bottom and bottom of the common area is determined, as well as the economic feasibility of its exploitation,And it was that this German study indicated the economic feasibility of the project for the availability of quantities of minerals estimated at 97 million tons of various minerals, for example 2 million tons of zinc, and it seems that the two governments decided to update what was included in the 1974 agreement, so they signed in 2012 another agreement in February 2012 regarding exploration. Minerals in international waters shared in the Red Sea.

Sudan Tribune  reported On November 20, 2016, a statement by the Sudanese Minister of Mining indicated that this committee meets every six months alternately in Jeddah and Khartoum, and that it is authorized to research and follow up on related technical and financial issues, and that the two countries will benefit enormously from the Atlantis 2 project The value of the mineral wealth, subject of exploitation, is estimated at $ 20 billion at April 2016 prices, the Sudan Tribune newspaper indicated Also, that the joint body licensed in 2010 to Diamond Fields International, the Canadian company for diamond fields ومقرها Vancouver And the Saudi Manafea Company to start exploratory activities in the Rift Valley region located in the joint marine area of ​​the two countries, and that a feasibility study for the Canadian company was drawn up in 2012 and included the expectation that the two countries would reap large profits from the extraction of copper, silver and zinc from the Red Sea bed in this area in which production was expected to start in 2014 as soon as Completion of technical studies.

In connection with the foregoing, it should be noted that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia concluded agreements regarding its maritime borders with a number of countries that share the view of maritime space, so it signed with Bahrain an agreement on the boundaries of the continental shelf in February 1958, and an agreement on the maritime borders with Qatar in December 1965, and an agreement on the borders The continental shelf with Iran in January 1969, and an agreement with Sudan regarding the joint exploration and exploitation of the Red Sea bed and subsoil resources, in May 1974, and it signed an agreement with Yemen on the maritime boundaries on June 12, 2000 and thus resolved a dispute over islands in the Red Sea, and with Kuwait there is also an agreement on borders The continental shelf was signed in July 2000,In December 2007, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Jordan signed an agreement to demarcate the maritime borders between them after about 42 years of demarcating their land borders, and it is noted that since the last agreement the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia signed with any of the countries bordering the Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf, it has not signed a similar or different agreement regarding Determining the maritime borders or the continental shelf with Egypt, which Saudi Arabia shares in the border at the Gulf of Aqaba, and the situation remained the same until the two countries signed on April 8, 2016 a controversial agreement in Cairo during an official visit of the Saudi king to Egypt that lasted for 5 days, and of course there is no agreement between Saudi Arabia And Israel, because the Kingdom has not yet officially recognized the State of Israel, and in the general framework it is mentioned that the Kingdom is among the countries that signed an agreement.In the general framework, it is mentioned that the Kingdom is among the countries that signed an agreement.In the general framework, it is mentioned that the Kingdom is among the countries that signed an agreement.Montego Bay Or the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of ​​19822, as is the case with Egypt and the rest of the countries bordering the Red Sea except for Eritrea * (Ambassador Bilal Al-Masry. A research study entitled “Egypt and Saudi Arabia and their maritime borders in the Gulf of Aqaba.” Encyclopedia of Knowledge)

It is known and in connection with this that it is mentioned that from the military and geopolitical point of view the superiority of the coast’s ability to control and control the Red Sea, and then this control reaches its peak in the Gulf of Aqaba, where the maritime borders between Egypt and Saudi Arabia are located at its entrance, which increases the importance of the strategic and military defense view. / Or offensive to the Red Sea as a whole and the entrance to the Gulf of Aqaba in particular, where the islands of Tiran and Sanafir are located, which are supposed to pass through the Saudi-Egyptian maritime borders, and the theory of military rule is completed by the optimal use of the islands. It can be said that the island density of the Red Sea amounts to 2.1 islands per square mile of the water body of this sea. * (The previous reference)

From the geological point of view, the Red Sea is considered a huge part resulting from the separation of the Arab bloc from the Nubian bloc and it is in the area of ​​separation that Red Sea as a result of the divergence of these two masses in what is known as the Great African Fault. The average width of the Red Sea in most parts of it is 200 km (or 280 km) and its maximum width is 360 km and the average depth of the Red Sea – and this is an important part – is 490 meters, but the depths reach 2,300 meters in the central region of it (the maximum depth in the Gulf of Aqaba is 1,850 meters), and its length is 3069 miles, and by adding the coasts of Aden, this length will reach 4347. A tendency, and this basin represents in itself a potential wealth for the countries bordering it, it is necessary to exploit it with high financing capabilities that are only available in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,The Saudi bond with cooperation in the exploitation of these resources with other countries bordering this sea depends on the appreciation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for the stability of bilateral relations with this or that country because of the investment process in the exploitation of these resources in relation to long-term investments, and the Red Sea is considered one of the most important seas in the world. The strategy and its connection with the world economies, whether logistical through the vital importance of the Suez Canal, as a transit corridor located at the northern entrance to the Red Sea for oil tankers and military force carriers of countries related to what is happening in the Arab Gulf and Bab al-Mandab regions at the entrance to the southern Red Sea, which has become accessible to the threats of the Houthis and their Iranian allies. Currently, to the extent that political stability in this sea is related to the regular flow of oil, the same is related to global energy strategies, unless we are talking about new alternatives to energy and commodity transport methods (the case of the Chinese project, for example).

The foregoing indicates that up to now only two of the eight Red Sea countries are exploiting the Red Sea unconventional, that is, non-petroleum, and therefore it can be said that this exploitation is part of a longer term strategy adopted by the Kingdom, as this will become clear later, and the government of Sudan has of course benefited From the strategic position that the Kingdom has conferred on the common area in the Red Sea with it, and there is no doubt that the Saudi-Sudanese model of exploiting mineral resources in the common area is a positive example that other countries overlooking the Red Sea can follow.But this model, as previously mentioned, in order to be embarked upon, there must be stable bilateral relations and a heavy capital that covers the costs of previous and necessary studies and exploitation operations associated with high-level technologies, which is what most of the countries bordering on the Red Sea, on which various scientific research have been conducted to study it and study its bottom and below. Including an important study conducted in 1967, the results of which identified 4 feasible sites for exploitation operations, three of which are located off the Sudanese coast at a latitude of 30 degrees 21 degrees north, and the fourth area was that located off the Egyptian coast south of the Gulf of Suez.The Sudanese-Saudi zone in the Red Sea, which extends to an area of ​​100 square miles and an average depth of 2000 meters in the middle of the sea floor west of the midline between the Saudi and Sudanese shores, is a promising area by various measures, as specialists consider it one of the most important centers of mineral wealth in the world, as it is initially estimated that only the upper layer contains an area of ​​38 miles Only a square of it and a thickness of 10 meters from the bottom rocks of this range, with the exception of iron ore, with a value of more than 2 billion and a half billion dollars, according to the figures estimated in the 1970s.

The legal framework for the Saudi-Sudanese exploitation of wealth in the common area :

This framework relates to the development upon which international law relating to the seas and what is related thereto have settled on the so-called continental shelf and its devolution, which was dealt with by international agreements regulating the exploitation of minerals from the seabed and the ocean, especially the Geneva Convention on the Continental Flap signed in 1958, which did not definitively specify any extension of the area The continental shelf or flap except based on the depth only, which is 2000 meters in accordance with this agreement, and the legal framework also includes the resolution approved by the United Nations in 1970, which is called “Declaration of Principles on the Ocean Floor and the Earth’s Ground Below the Bottom outside the limits of the waters subject to national legal authority”, and it included This decision was based on the principles that (not applied) and the international community would like to build upon a new, final and decisive legal order, but – that is, the principles – indicated two foundations:

Calling for the establishment of an international organization to manage the exploitation of resources from the ocean floor.

The declaration that the ocean floor resources are the common heritage of all human beings.

 However, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea signed in Montego Bay In the Dominican Republic on September 10, 1982 and came into force on November 16, 1994, it stipulated in its Article 76 in Part VI of this law the definition of the continental shelf in a specific manner that could be considered decisive, as it was mentioned in this part in Article 76 what it says “1- Includes the continental shelf of any country Coastal, bottom and subsoil of the submerged areas that extend beyond its territorial sea throughout the natural extension of that country’s land territory to the outer edge of the continental margin or to a distance of 200 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured if the outer edge of the continental margin does not extend To that distance ”2- The continental shelf of any coastal country does not extend beyond the limits stipulated in paragraphs 4 to 6. 3 – The continental margin includes the submerged extension of the land mass of the coastal state, and it consists of the sea floor and the subsoil of the shelf, slope and height, But it does not include the deep ocean floor with its elongated heights nor the subsoil thereof. ” 4- (A) For the purposes of this agreement, the coastal state decides the outermost party of the continental margin wherever the edge extends beyond 200 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured by using Either: (1) a line drawn in accordance with paragraph 7 with reference to the farthest outlying fixed points of which the thickness of sedimentary rocks is not less than 1% of the shortest distance from this point to the foot of the continental slope, (2) or a line drawn in accordance with paragraph 7 with reference to Fixed points not exceeding 60 nautical miles from the foot of the continental slope, (B) The foot of the continental slope, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, is determined by the point at which the maximum change in the slope occurs at its base. 5 – Fixed points that form the line of the outer limits of the continental shelf on the sea floor, which is the line drawn in accordance with sub-paragraphs (A) (1) and (2) of Paragraph 4,

Saudi Arabia ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on April 24, 1996 and also ratified the Convention on the Application of Part Eleven of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on April 24, 1996. As for Sudan, it ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on January 23, 1985, but Sudan until 2007 He was not a party to the 1994 agreement related to the implementation of Part XI of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea signed on December 10, 1982, on the other hand, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a member of the International Seabed Authority and signed the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities with this authority on October 11, 1999, and Sudan in turn A member of this authority and signed the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities on August 6, 1999.

Whereas the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the government of Sudan had signed a detailed agreement in 17 articles related to the joint exploitation of the natural resources located at the bottom and bottom of the Red Sea in the area of ​​the continental shelf between them in 1974, this would not have been possible except in conformity with their signature on the United Nations agreement Of the Law of the Sea signed in 1982 and which Saudi Arabia ratified in April 1996, meaning that there is no contradiction between what was stated in the provisions of the United Nations Convention and what was stated in its bilateral agreement with the Republic of Sudan to exploit the floor and below of the Red Sea on the continental shelf off their coasts.

American thinking prior to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea :

There is a political norm that has moved relatively strongly in the contemporary world and with relative clarity in the Middle East, formed after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and with it the Eastern Bloc, according to which the United States voluntarily and without international consent appointed itself a legislative authority for the world alongside or perhaps a precedent for the United Nations in an attempt to build And the drafting of international law, for example the American Congress’s issuing the law for the liberation of Iraq and peace in Sudan and the drawing up of blacklists for states stigmatized as sponsors of terrorism – from the point of view of the United States and the tail countries headed by rulers – in addition to groups that believe that they are opposed to regimes that are often supported by the United States. As well as issuing sanctions on countries, the most famous of which is the ILSA, the Economic Sanctions Act on Iran and Libya Known as Damato’s Law with the issuance of other incentive laws for polite countries, such as the AGOA, All this arsenal – and these are only examples of it – does not make any sane and realist to ignore the idea that the United States wanted it or not to be certain that there are legislative interventions of the American Congress that bypass the legal territory of the American legislation, so that the American Congress pushes some legislation bypassing the American legal territory To give a practical impression that the United States is participating with the United Nations and its agencies specialized in forming, drafting, and sometimes altering and shaping contemporary international law, and accordingly there is importance to address the American position on the issue of states’ exploitation of mineral and natural resources in areas of joint exploitation, especially in the semi-closed seas and the Red Sea thereof. For various American reasons, among them is that the United States has not yet ratified the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which governs by virtue of some of its articles this exploitation process,As will be indicated, an American company tried to exploit these resources in the area of ​​joint exploitation between Saudi Arabia and Sudan.

 To find out the importance inherent in the process of joint exploitation by Sudan and Saudi Arabia of mineral resources in and below the bottom of the common maritime zone between them, I will present following the American position on this issue as well as the general position in an important region of the world that has some similarities and differences from the issue of the joint Saudi-Sudanese exploitation in the Red Sea and I mean the Arctic region Arctic And then in the Arctic OceanTherefore, the following picture of American thought regarding the exploitation of these resources may give an idea of ​​the previous circumstances surrounding the Saudi-Sudanese agreement in this regard in 1974, which was signed a year after the start of the sessions of the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, and that is why it can be said that the end of the United Nations conferences on the law The sea in 1982 with the signing of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which represented a solid and decisive framework that prevented the expected conflicts by large countries with small states regarding the exploitation of third world countries for resources on and below the seabed that overlooked,Especially since the countries that have fleets, technologies and past maritime expertise and have the necessary funding to exploit the mineral resources at the bottom and bottom of the seabed, they could, if they put formulas expressing their opinion, they alone would achieve all the ideas they aspire to that allow them absolute control and control over the exploitation of the resources of the bottom and what He wrote it down in a sea like the Red Sea by placing it in the body of this aforementioned agreement, and the issue of Saudi Arabia, Sudan and other countries’ exploitation of the resources of the Red Sea floor in the area between them from the Red Sea and the other would be extremely difficult or even impossible.

Perhaps it was possible to review the American thought put forward by the United States throughout the sessions of the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea to verify this American idea aimed at stripping the rights of developing countries to exploit, since the United States had enacted a year regarding the relationship of the continental shelf with any of the countries that have a shelf Continental What When US President Harry S. Truman Proclamation of September 28, 1945 No. 2667 Concerning United States Policy Concerning Natural Resources on the Bottom and Subsoil of the Continental Shelf The Natural Resources of the Subsoil and Sea Bed of the Continental ShelfBased on this previous declaration of the 1958 Geneva World Conference that dealt with the continental shelf issue, the United States imposed its sovereignty over the continental shelf and carved many countries towards it after that, and citing this American precedent in registering a position to deal with the continental shelf issue, one of the American companies operating in The mining industry claims AM.Metal MKT On February 15, 1968, the United Nations requested permission for it for a period of three years, during which it could assess the technical and economic feasibility of the mineral resources after exploring an area of ​​38 square miles of the Red Sea floor between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Sudan.This situation sparked controversy in the United Nations, which led to the emergence of a trend to establish an international body that would include its powers to monitor the exploitation of mineral resources from the seabed. Indeed, during 1969 the work of a legal technical committee of the United Nations began to study the peaceful uses of the waters of the seabed and oceans. * (Ahmed Imran Mansour, Cairo’s International Politics Journal, January 1970 issue, page 112).

The American company concerned with the exploitation of the common area on the continental shelf in the Red Sea between Saudi Arabia and Sudan was not moving unconsciously, on the contrary, the company moved on the basis of the void that was left intentionally or unintentionally by the Geneva Convention of the Continental Shelf of 1958 as this agreement did not specify its scope but rather its depth, and then this move The company is in this direction that goes against what US President Truman has enacted By announcing the aforementioned and giving the right to the United States to exploit its continental shelf, but it seems that the Americans might have toured their thought of the financial and technical deficit of Saudi Arabia and Sudan at that time, which would undoubtedly impede them from thinking about exploiting this region, a thinking based on illusion, for even if this was a reality, the sovereignty of the state It remains in place as the previous international practice of the Geneva Conference, which was established by the American President Truman, remains The company is not present and prevents this company from committing this mistake, and in any case, the American legal thought was distributed at the time and perhaps even now (which may explain the delay in the congressional ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea signed in 1982) regarding the exploitation of resources at the bottom of the continental shelf between 3 directions: :

1- An explicit recognition that the Red Sea, despite its deep depths that exceeds the limits set by the Geneva Convention on the Continental Shelf, is still subject to the limits to which the sovereignty of the countries with the shores overlooking this sea can extend.

2- The explicit recognition that the Red Sea is an Arab Sea (which it is almost like) is a deep one bound and controlled by Arab countries.

3- The tendency to suggest the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to quarrel with Sudan to define the center line and thus determine the borders of sovereignty over the depths of the sea in comparison to what was agreed upon between Iran and Saudi Arabia when sharing the waters of the Arabian Gulf, although the mineral wealth area in the Red Sea is located west of the center line and Sudan was not Until 1970, it declared its sovereignty over these depths despite the announcement of the discovery of mineral resources there and despite the progress of AM.Metal MKT. Her request submitted referred to it. * (Ibid. Page 113)

The United States advanced to a further distance to impose its philosophy on the exploitation of mineral resources in the seabed, seizing the opportunity to start successive annual sessions of the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (and perhaps among other interested countries pushing for the idea of ​​holding such a conference along the lines of other international conferences such as climate, trade, etc., to realize the great powers. – And this is true – that what is issued by the United Nations is directly integrated into the body of international law) and in one of these sessions and about two years before the signing in September 1982 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in Montego Bay  The United States had a special thinking regarding the development of an international law of the sea on which the countries of the world would be modest, and this thinking echoed throughout the sessions of the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea that began its work in November 1973 and in which the representatives of the countries of the world until the eighth round of its convening were unable to skip The main obstacle to achieving a general agreement is the obstacle to establishing an acceptable legal system that takes into account the exploitation of seabed resources beyond the boundaries of the territorial waters, and the American diplomacy was pushing strongly towards the establishment of the International Seabed Authority and was concerned while it was actively engaged in this direction with three points which it considered essential. Which :

1- The extent to which the Authority will reach in exercising its control over the activities of mining companies and the detailed system that will govern the exploitation of resources.

2- The economic lease value of manganese extraction sites (there are millions of tons of manganese nodules that contain minerals such as copper and nickel in the ocean floors), some of which will be distributed to the international community and the rest will be devoted to financing the Authority’s operations.

3- The national representation within the authority, which will define the system and the governing body.

The convening stages of the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea in 1977 reached an agreement to establish what was then called the parallel system, according to which the International Seabed Authority would invest 50% of any mining site through an investment branch affiliated with it, while the other half or the other 50% would be invested by the existing mining companies Currently (all of which are from the developed countries that possessed abundant capital and technical capabilities) under contracts with the Authority, this parallel system was a compromise between the desire of the South to establish a strong branch of the Authority monopolizing mining and the desire of the North to subject this body to the needs of the existing mining companies at that time. * (Dr. Jack Parkenbus. The field magazine published by the International Communication Agency of the United States of America. Number 107 February 1980),

In general, the current position of the United States in relation to this part, namely the exploitation of mineral resources in the seabed is based on the following (1) failure to ratify – to this day – the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, (2) the continuation of the controversial debate about freedom – its freedom – in Mining in the bed of the high seas (its bottoms) according to Article 2 of the Treaty on the High Seas signed in 1958, which means this kind of freedom – I think – has been copied on the basis of the international community and its adherence to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and not based on and perhaps satisfied with what it describes as diplomacy American Customary International Law .

Exploitation of natural and mineral resources in the Arctic continent :

In order to clarify the issue of the exploitation of mineral resources in the common areas of the seas and the related details of controversy and / or agreement, it is possible to cite the case of the Arctic continent and the Arctic Ocean in particular, but it is necessary – in principle – to refer to two things, the first of which is that the case of exploitation of Saudi Arabia and Sudan, although it is bilateral There is no collective framework linking it with the rest of the countries bordering the sea – for various reasons – but in the final accounts it is a successful, courageous and productive case that reflects a confirmed high degree of bilateral harmonic relations between the Kingdom and Sudan. Secondly, there is no doubt that the main difference among the possible aspects of the difference between the Saudi-Sudanese case and the Arctic Ocean case is that the first case is between two countries and the second is between eight countries,Nevertheless, it is useful to shed light on the second case, as this may appear and may answer a major question and what may be related to it, which is: Why did the American company in 1968 act in the Red Sea joint area between Saudi Arabia and Sudan in that way?

Antarctica is  Arctic(The word is derived from Arktos Greek meaning bear) that was discovered in the ninth century in the far north of the Earth and its space includes the Arctic Ocean And the sections that are the most northern of them are located in the north of the American continent and Eurasia and there are a number of islands and archipelagos located on the edge of the northern coasts of these two continents, and encircle Arctic All Greenland  (Belonging to Denmark) and all northern regions of Canada and the state of Alaska Belonging to the United States of America as well as Russia, Finland, Sweden, Norway and the main islands of Arctic It is the one belonging to Canada, and Norway has other islands, and there is the island of New Sibera Affiliated with Russia, adopts the standard for defining the Arctic boundaries It is on the “Southern Line” which is placed (by default) on the Arctic Circle Latitude 60 degrees 30 degrees North, and the area of ​​the Arctic 62,050 sq km and its highest point 1,717 m in   Newtontoppen in West Spitsbergen , وتذخر Arctic With enormous mineral resources, what interests us here is the Arctic Ocean  It is the smallest ocean in the world and is located entirely in the Arctic region, and it is a circular basin covering an area of ​​14,090,000 square kilometers. It is an ocean that is almost closed, as it is surrounded by European and Asian lands, North America and Greenland. And a number of islands which are connected to the two calm oceans of Bering Strait And the Atlantic through the Greenland Sea From the logistical point of the Arctic Continent Of utmost importance as it is the shortest route between North America and Russia. * ( LEXION UNIVERSAL ENCYCLOPEDIA. VOL.2 1985. PAGE 138 AND 144)

And due to the strategic importance of the  Arctic in terms of the strategic point of view of the eight countries that each have a part of their territories, the Council of Antarctica is Conseil de l’Arctique Initially 1991, as a forum between the governments of the countries to address the problems that may encounter these governments whose lands are part of the Arctic Or the Arctic, and this forum was established on the basis of two pillars, the first of which is the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy Signed by eight participating countries in the Arctic, the second being the Ottawa Declaration In 1996, according to which this forum was formally established, and the eight countries that signed this declaration, namely Canada, the United States, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Russia (there are 12 countries granted the status of “observer”) targeted the achievement of sustainable development in the polar region in the economic, social and environmental fields, and the member states of the Council alternate its presidency Every two years and meets every six months periodically, there are 7 organizations that represent the indigenous people of Antarctica or what are called Autochtones. Or Eskimo Les Inuits The council is a consultative forum and has no authority to issue binding decisions, but this council, even as a consultative framework, connects its members so that it achieves important successes in non-controversial issues, including its issuance on May 28, the Ilulissat declaration .(West Greenland city2) which included the Council’s support for the will of its member states to negotiate with the International Maritime Organization to establish a definition of the Antarctic Law on Navigation. Two treaties were also issued under its auspices in 2011 to coordinate search and rescue responsibility issues and the other in 2013 regarding pollution control measures in the event of an oil spill, but with regard to matters Military security There is no space for a ray of hope to develop a joint security or military strategy, or both, or an organization concerned with this for the Arctic continent due to the radical divergence between seven of the countries that have sovereignty over the continent and the Russian Federation, which also has a part of this sovereignty, and thus the polar continent A contact zone for a possible confrontation between the two parties. However, the member states of the Antarctic Council have now managed to create a cooperative space between them in the scope of economic and environmental issues.

It is true that the Antarctic continent represented in the 1950s a theater of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, but in 1968 they succeeded to some extent in laying the foundations for cooperation in the Arctic continent severed from the tension that prevails in their relations * ( Le Monde diplomatique. SEPTEMBRE 2015. L, ours polaire, animal geopolitique .page 11The establishment of the Antarctic Council worked to make the space for differences between them as narrow as possible, for the Antarctic Council contributed to reducing tension and limiting the differences between its eight countries, and even defending if the caller was called for their collective interests (which is narrow by the nature of the membership of two opposing poles in the Council: Russia and the United States It is worth noting that there are countries that are not members of the Council that believe that they have interests that touch the Antarctic continent, such as China, which prompted them to request the Council in 2009 to obtain the status of “observer member”, but their request was rejected at this time because Canada and Russia feared that this meant The internationalization of the Arctic, which leads to making it another “United Nations” or ONUisation, But at the top of Kiruna In Sweden in 2013, China obtained the status of “observer”, similar to what was done with Japan, South Korea, India, Italy and Malaysia, thus joining other “watchdog” countries that preceded them are the Netherlands, Spain, Poland and Britain, and it is known that China has mining investments in Greenland.  , It also has an interest in the northern route that passes through the Arctic continent, through which between 5% and 15% of its trade passes * (the previous source is an article entitled La course a L, Arctique passé par Reykjavik. Page 10)Therefore, the Arctic continent constitutes a laboratory for generating, reproducing and clarifying policies applied by the countries participating in the Antarctic Council that are not covered by the media spotlight, while in other regions far from the Antarctic continent, the Red Sea region and its surroundings enjoy media abundance and light intensity as it is at the heart of the tense Middle East region Always, in the sense that you can – with regard to certain policies of international powers such as the United States, for example on specific issues – to test their objectivity or their potential by looking at their policies on the same subject in other regions, which they may or may not apply in the Arctic, and the reason is simple: It has sovereignty in the Arctic continent, which belongs to the European continent in addition to the United States, and the engineering of the inter-relations between them all have a special pattern, so all the countries of the Arctic Council are either members of the Atlantic alliance – except for Russia – or are linked to the Atlantic alliance,The foregoing is also related to the fact that there are international relations and positions related to the Arctic continent and formed years ago regarding the aspirations of some countries that are not a member of the Arctic Council.Arctic Council In benefiting from the natural and mineral resources of the maritime domain surrounding this continent, which was proven by an American geological study drawn up in 2008, it was estimated that 10% of the oil reserves and 29% of the natural gas reserves in the world are located in the Arctic continent, but the cost of exploiting these resources is high, and with this there is a hidden conflict between especially the Member States of the Council of these Arctic nations are keen to keep it at its lowest Very Low Profile However, it continues. For example, in August 2007 a Russian submarine sailed in the Arctic region to confirm Moscow’s demands in the region, a Russian gesture that some did not consider it to have any legal significance because the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea has already organized procedures that confirm economic sovereignty over the continental shelf, so the agreement is devoted to each A country is a pure economic zone with a range of 200 miles or 360 km, starting from its shores, and any foreign ship can move within this range freely, but the state remains to retain its sovereignty to carry out all economic activities in it, whether on the sea surface or in its depths for mining exploitation, but Russia submitted in 2001 to the Cliff Limits Committee The Continental Commission des limites du plateau continental With a file that includes a request to practice exploitation in a specific region, and after reviewing the Russian claim file in 2002, Al-Hana saw that the geology of the depths of the sea justifies the Russian claim up to 200 miles, but this green light that the Russians got from this committee did not mean that the United Nations supported this claim. It only means that the claim is legitimate from a geological point of view, and negotiations remain with neighboring countries that have common borders with each other in the Arctic continent, and therefore the committee notified Russia after reviewing its file that the elements that Russia is citing in the belief that they are an extension of the Russian continental shelf do not justify its claim, especially regarding It is related to the issue of the  Lomonossov back The Danes believe that the Lomonosov Dahir is a geological extension of the Greenland region Their subsidiaries (Canada and Denmark defined their economic maritime borders in 1973, while the United States did not ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea), and in general there are disputes arising from the multiplicity of sovereignties in the Arctic continent, some of which found a way to be resolved and some of the parties are still looking for a solution such as the dispute Between Canada and the United States, between Canada and  Greenland, meaning with Denmark, and between Greenland Wallonridge.

In fact, it must be pointed out that the Arctic Council, despite carrying out coordination and consultative tasks, did not erase the latent hostility between its two main members, namely Russia and the United States, the Pravda newspaper indicated On July 31 , 2015 , a statement issued by the Russian Defense Ministry said it “Russia controls the air and maritime space for the    Arctic for a distance of not less than 500 km from the coast of Antarctica  , Arctic” Pravda commented  This statement by saying , “The many countries today a growing interest in the continent ‘s polar show and is willing to invest in the biggest development of the region rich in natural resources, and that at least five countries with the demands in the areas of Antarctica , Arctic It is Russia, the United States, Norway, Denmark, and Canada, and this country has an entrance on the coast of the Arctic Ocean“. The newspaper also quoted an expert as saying, “The United States does not have the equipment with which to develop Arctic, The United States has two heavy diesel equipment for crushing snow, one of which is in working condition and the other is smaller, which operates to serve research purposes. On the whole, the United States does not have a strategy for the development of the Arctic. The American and its implications for the policies of the two countries in areas where their interests collide, including Arctic To the extent that made American Admiral Bill Gortney Commander of the Northern Air Command of the United States and Canada NORAD He states that Russia’s use of Cruise missiles In Syria it has implications for US strategy in ArcticAll this, despite US President Barack Obama The development of the 2013 United States strategy for the continent of the Arctic  Arctic As a “region of peace and stability and free from conflict,” it is impossible to imagine that the United States has no interest in this region, otherwise the American Secretary of Defense would not have been Ash Carter On November 1, 2015, he said, “The Arctic continent is becoming more and more important, and it will be important to the United States and also important to other countries with which we maintain peace and the rules of order with it” * ( The Japan Times The first of November 2015), and it is known that Russia (during the Soviet era) established bases for it in Siberia and other bases in the Russian part of Arctic In Dkson و Tiksi And Ambartchik And Iaoutsk And on the island of Tchouktches Faced with Alaska State America, as for the United States, it established important bases in the Aleoutiennes In Alaska State And in the Republic of the Island In Reykjavik و Keflavik And in Greenland Denmark, in the Thule region  * (La Grande Encyclopeeie. Larousse. Page963It is logical that there should be credibility to appreciate the interest of the United States in the logistical, economic and military importance of the Arctic continent, as evidence that the United States began very early to show this interest 150 years ago when US Secretary of State Seward negotiated The Russian side to buy Alaska And it really is, and since then I became Alaska و Arctic The Arctic Ocean, with its underground wealth, is at the forefront of American concerns, and the United States in July 2015 proposed the name Mark Brzezinski Former ambassador to Sweden to be its candidate for the post of the Steering Committee of the Executive Director of the continent Polar ArcticAs President Obama On the first visit of a US president to the Arctic continent.

In general, it can be said that the riparian states on the Arctic Ocean, which are the same member states of the Arctic Council, use the general framework of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea ( UNCLOS). In defining its legal rights in the Arctic Ocean Area This is according to what was indicated by the Ilulissat Declaration Issued by the Arctic Council meeting there on May 28, 2008, but it is noted that the United States cannot obtain a license from the International Seabed Authority(Established in 1999 and headquartered in Jamaica) for not yet ratifying the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea signed by and ratified by the largest number of United Nations member states, and it is also indicated in this regard that five of the sovereign states in Antarctica are Russia, the United States, Canada and Norway Denmark ( GreenlandIts exclusive economic zones are set at a range of 200 nautical miles (370 km or 230 miles) starting from its shores on the  Arctic Ocean. According to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, signatory states to this convention can apply to the Commission on the limits of the Continental Shelf With a request to extend the exclusive economic zone above 350 nautical miles, Russia has already submitted this request, as previously mentioned.

As previously mentioned, the importance of the Arctic continent does not depend on the eight member states of the Antarctic Council, but rather extends it to a range close to its scope, the Baltic states, Estonia and with it the Baltic states have a close relationship with security and stability in the Arctic continent. Baltic Russians are wary of the intentions they are close to the Baltic states are also part of the under Russian sovereignty in the Arctic Arctic Which is the Baltic countries, relying on security issues on the Atlantic alliance (there is no consensus yet on linking the alliance’s policies to the Arctic continent, given that Russia is a participant in possessing part of the sovereignty of this continent as a member of the Arctic Council) for fear of possible Russian aggressive intentions, so These countries are looking forward to cooperation with the countries of the Arctic continent in connection with their ambitious projects that will be implemented in this continent, including the Arctic Corridor project. Finland plans to build a railway at Kirkenes Port It connects the Arctic continent to the city of Rovaniemi From northern Finland to connect to the European railway network, hence the importance of looking for comparative purposes for the cooperation of countries sharing sovereignty over the Arctic continent in promoting cooperation and coordination in situations related to the exploitation of their land and marine resources in the Arctic Ocean, as this has a direct relationship with cooperation between countries in different regions Of the world, including the Red Sea.

Development of the Saudi strategic scope in the Red Sea

The development of the Saudi strategy in the Red Sea falls into two areas, the first is bilateral with Sudan, and the second is purely Saudi, and that is as follows:

(I) economic binary scale :

There are facts and / or political connotations that can be extracted from the incident of Saudi-Sudanese cooperation in the exploitation of mineral resources within the scope of the Red Sea shared between them, as well as from comparing that cooperation with the situation of exploitation of the mineral resources of the eight member states of the Antarctic Council   Conseil de l’Arctique for land resources in this continent in addition To exploit the core of the Arctic Ocean  , And as follows:

1- The Red Sea is currently lacking a collective framework, especially after the collapse and dissolution of the Sana’a Cooperation Assembly, a gathering that was dominated by a political character, which was established in October 2002 and included Yemen, Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti and Sudan. There is no practical effect left of it, so the Saudi / Sudanese cooperation – in my estimation – is a productive work that will benefit – if it is completed – the Saudi and Sudanese people just as the case of cooperation existing between the countries participating in the Arctic continent through its council that includes eight countries, including Russia. Of being in declared conflict with a member state of the same organization, the United States, but there is no doubt that the Council of Antarctica or the Conseil de l’ArctiqueWith its organs, the most important of which is the Executive Steering Committee of the Arctic Continent, it represents, in relative terms, a collective framework that results in at least a relatively positive impact of linking and coordinating it between the eight countries that share sovereignty over the land mass of the Arctic continent, as well as, accordingly, on the maritime domain of the Arctic Ocean, an ocean that is almost described as relatively closed As in the case of the Red Sea, we would not find and it is very unlikely that we will find a framework similar to it with regard to the Red Sea, in which the framework of cooperation does not exceed the bilateral term, as in the case of Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Jordan and Israel in the case of the Dead Sea project, which is a logistical project mainly not related to the exploitation of mineral resources, which I think is not It can be exploited – if available – in the Gulf of Aqaba except in a collective manner required by the narrow geographical nature of the bay, which is about 100 miles long and ranges between 7 and 8 miles in width and is relatively shallow at its head and deepens to reach about 2160 feet.Its deepest parts are located in the middle, where the depth reaches 4,600 feet, and the islands of Tiran and Sanafir divide its southern entrance, which is 6 miles wide, into three corridors, the largest of which is located off the coast of Sinai and between the island of Tiran and its width is 3.7 miles, because there are still conflicts attached to this region, such as the Saudi-Egyptian conflict On the islands of Tiran and Sanafir at its entrance, and because Saudi Arabia, until now, cannot be considered a party to the so-called peace process with Israel,Therefore, it is not possible to talk about collective or bilateral exploitation projects in the Gulf of Aqaba * (It is noted that the closest Saudi industrial settlement from this region is in the Tabuk Governorate overlooking the Gulf of Aqaba, according to an official statement issued in February 2013 by the Saudi Ministry of Trade and Industry, there are 62 factories in this governorate that according to this statement are planned Building new cities with an area of ​​4 million square meters) except after the settlement of the Saudi-Egyptian conflict or after the full peaceful settlement of the Palestinian issue, especially since Saudi Arabia had previously submitted to the Arab summit held in Beirut on March 27 and 28, 2002 with the Prince Abdullah project adopted by the Arab League to be an Arab project for peace despite From the Libyan Jamahiriya’s dispute with the Kingdom in this regard, under the pretext of discussing Gaddaf’s ideas regarding this settlement, considering it a precedent for the Saudi initiative preceded by the announcement of the Saudi Crown Prince, Prince Fahd bin Aziz, on August 7, 1981, a project to settle the Arab-Israeli conflict that included an invitation to the United StatesTo deny the Camp David framework as a framework for a just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East. However, the Saudi project (which was adopted by the Arab summit in Fez on 6-9 September 1982) among other important matters includes recognition of the right of the countries of the region to live in peace and that the United Nations or some of its members guarantee the implementation The principles contained in the Saudi project,Also, with regard to exploitation projects in the Gulf of Aqaba, there is a possibility of investing in this Gulf, especially since the sudden and controversial agreement that was concluded between Saudi Arabia and Egypt to define their maritime borders in the Gulf of Aqaba on April 8, 2015, which resulted in the devolution of the islands of Tiran and Sanafir to Saudi Arabia necessitated the opening of a communication channel, which is likely to be indirect. Between Saudi Arabia and Israel due to the relevance of determining these borders to the reference of the Egyptian / Israeli peace treaty, which indicated that it is among the duties of the international forces to ensure freedom of navigation in the Strait of Tiran, and that Map No. (1) attached to this treaty shows the green line that defines Area (C) according to the treaty. Salam, the Egyptian-Israeli peace, and this line includes the islands of Tiran and Sanafir together, as they are within the scope of Area (C) or (VSThat is, there is an agreement or treaty that has or almost has an international characteristic referring to the islands of Tiran and Sanafir as they are Egyptian lands on or in connection with which are located next to the Egyptian forces or presence some of the elements of a multinational force to monitor navigation in the Strait of Tiran with the consultation and approval of the Egyptian government, Therefore, it was necessary to change the text related to the islands of Tiran and Sanafir with the Egyptian / Israeli peace treaty from contacting Israel as the second party in the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty to notify it of the devolution of the two islands referred to to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia because any change in the text contained in this Egyptian / Israeli peace treaty and related to these two islands should be consulted. Israel about it, which was certainly at least indirect.

2- The Saudi-Sudanese agreement confirms once again and perhaps forever the absence of the Arab League’s role in forming a system, even if at the consultative level regarding the exploitation of the wealth of the bottom and below the Red Sea bed, similar to what the eight member states of the Arctic Council did, Conseil de l’Arctique, Although bilateral cooperation is justified and perhaps more practical in such aspects of collective exploitation between quarrelsome countries, this does not negate that there is a space available for collective Arab action between six of the eight Arab countries bordering the Red Sea that the Council of Arab Economic Unity can Work on it, were it not for this failure in the advancement of this council to reveal more severe deficiencies in the foundations of the Arab League itself. The weak authority of its Secretary-General is due to the wrong organizational situation that has been set up for the Arab League since its inception. No more, no less ,This leads to the assertion that in order for the Arab League to contribute to advancing Arab collective action, the matter requires the development of the Arab League itself by amending its charter, a comprehensive, fundamental amendment that includes revolutionary dynamics in the decision-making process and its implementation together, which requires, before that, getting rid of the consensus base in voting. Above all of this, liberating the wills of Arab kings and presidents from the yoke of foreign domination over them, and this will only be done by ridding democracy of its shackles and shackles that pawned its movement and obliged it to stay in its dark cave forcibly it, which is the value that the Arab peoples tried in the Arab Spring revolutions to obtain by force before they It rusts.This will only be done by ridding democracy of its shackles and shackles, which pawned its movement and obliged it to remain in its dark cave forcibly it, a value that the Arab peoples tried in the Arab Spring revolutions to obtain by force before it rusted.This will only be done by ridding democracy of its shackles and shackles, which pawned its movement and obliged it to remain in its dark cave forcibly it, a value that the Arab peoples tried in the Arab Spring revolutions to obtain by force before it rusted.

3- The holding of the role of the twelfth meeting in Jeddah on November 22, 2016 for the Saudi Sudanese Permanent Committee for the Exploitation of Natural Resources in the Valley Rift in the maritime area between the two countries, confirming the restoration of Saudi-Sudanese relations to their vitality and traditional position as one of the best Saudi bilateral relations with a country outside the Gulf Cooperation Council after Morocco , However, it also confirms the economic advantage of Saudi-Sudanese relations to the Kingdom compared to its costly relationship with other countries in the region, especially since its relations with Egypt have become an economically costly relationship and almost politically speaking, while the relationship with Sudan is a remarkably resourceful and profitable relationship.     While 2 Atlantis But what can be said about the matter of Arab rulers who accepted and accepted for their countries to be on the pattern of the Ghassanid and Munadhir emirates? .

4- The process of exploiting mineral resources on the Red Sea bed is identical to the economic diversification strategy that was adopted by the Kingdom for the first time in the 1975-1980 Second Development Plan and is consistent with the conditions of Sudan, which lost its oil resources after the secession of the south from its north on July 9, 2011, so this process needs funding Dense and regular, which is available to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which preferred to deal with Sudan and not with Egypt also opposite it on the other side of the Red Sea due to negative factors, including the historical and legal factor, as there is still the issue of determining the maritime borders in the Red Sea in the Gulf of Aqaba has not been settled yet, but There are other, but positive factors, that fall into the natural formation of the Saudi-Sudanese relationship, which, along with other ideological matters, led to Sudan’s return to the normal course of its relations with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the reversal of its relations with Iran, a relationship that was forced,In my estimation that the deterioration of Egyptian / Sudanese relations from 1990 to 2000 was the main reason for the flourishing of Iranian / Sudanese relations. The Mubarak regime adopted a confrontational approach with the government of the National Salvation Revolution that took power in Khartoum on June 30, 1989, to announce its adoption of the Islamic civilization project, which is a project. A regime without identity or features like the Mubarak regime considers it an absolute danger, and in addition to the role of the Mubarak regime in the deterioration of these relations, Sudan’s exchange of action and bad reaction and sometimes the worst on the basis of providing an unprecedented bad nature in Egyptian / Sudanese relations, and among the results of the Egyptian position on Sudan And the opposition and even the destroyer of the fundamentals of the Egyptian-Sudanese national security theory, which is one of the few theories in the world that is characterized by a reciprocal nature,That Egypt isolated itself from the repercussions of the war and the negotiations with South Sudan, especially since the Mubarak regime and his regime were deaf to hear the various calls calling for the revival of the mutual defense agreement signed between Egypt and Sudan on July 15, 1976 to repel the American attack coordinated with the West to separate South Sudan from its north, which succeeded In which the American diplomacy is achieved with the participation of organized countriesIGAD Through the signing of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army led by John Garang on the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Kenya in 2005, which included the options of unity or separation for the people of Southern Sudan, and that mutual defense agreement was one of the most important components of the steadfast Egyptian-Sudanese position in the face of American attempts to create the state of South Sudan in a way. It is illegal and whose main goal was to break the common theory of the Egyptian-Sudanese national security and then implement the American President Clinton administration’s project to change part of the African map by establishing the Greater Horn of Africa. .

(Second) The Saudi strategic military / security and political scope in the Red Sea :

It is difficult not to link between three major and clear moves that represent their simultaneity with each other after the Yemeni revolution overthrew a cogged and corrupt regime in Yemen led by a dead head of national conscience. President Ali Abdullah Saleh has immunity from legal prosecution against him, because the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was assured of it after the counter-revolution led by Ali Abdullah Saleh after he woke up from the nightmare of forcibly abandoning the government in alliance with the Houthis, Iran and other regional powers, that a different strategy must be devised. And integrated Red Sea,Accordingly, and from the reality of the time sequence of three strategic steps that Saudi Arabia planned after the overthrow of the Ali Abdullah Saleh regime in Yemen – which is the biggest concern and strategic threat to Saudi Arabia – it is possible to monitor the main features of this strategy, which began with considering the southern Red Sea a military security field for the Kingdom that necessitated resorting to the military option and starting. Decisive Storm ”and launched air strikes against the Houthis, Saleh’s allies, on March 25, 2015.

From the above, it is clear that there is a development of the Saudi strategy regarding the Red Sea due to the events that followed the Arab Spring 2010-2011 and led to dramatic transformations in Saudi relations with Egypt and Yemen at a pace and depth that obligated the Kingdom to develop this strategy so that it became almost integrated with the events and the development of the Saudi relationship with the two axes The Egyptian and Yemeni in the Red Sea, and then these transformations produced a new Saudi strategy for the national security of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea, which represents the western side of its national security, which is applied to the present time on three axes :

(1 ) South Red Sea axis at Bab al-Mandab :

With regard to the development of the military confrontation in Yemen and the entry of international parties in it, this confrontation has become of a regional character, and as a result of the Saudi Arabia’s sense and calculations of the danger of the Houthi’s control of Yemen over its national security, and perhaps even to the same degree on the security of the Gulf Cooperation Council states, because the development of the situation in Yemen is linked to the Iranian role and its expansion To the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which is confirmed by the Sultanate of Oman’s recent accession to the Islamic alliance with Saudi Arabia in the Yemen war, which has maintained a policy of truce with Iran, unlike all the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, according to what was published by  Arabian BUSINESS. COM On December 29, 2016, which confirmed that the Sultanate had sent an official letter to the Crown Prince and the Saudi Defense Minister indicating the Sultanate’s willingness to participate in the coalition, which means that the Sultanate of Oman is sensing the magnitude and approaching the Iranian threat to the GCC countries, in comparison to the expectations of the extent of the impact of the Iranian military intervention in Yemen now to countries The Arab Gulf later, as well as on the Iranian / Russian role in the Syrian situation, and comparing it to the Syrian and Yemeni cases and Iran’s role in them, it is logical that the confrontation lines touch Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries from which Iran will not exclude anyone, so it was natural for Saudi Arabia to consider Iran’s development of its role. The military / security forces in Yemen, and consequently, its national security strategy in the Red Sea obliged it to adopt a policy of caution and caution on the southern axis, so that it saw the need to expand the circle of this military confrontation to reach Djibouti,Accordingly, Saudi Arabia started contacts with the Republic of Djibouti with the aim of establishing a military base for it on its territory facing Yemen on the other side of the Bab al-Mandab Strait to surround any military naval effort against its military operation in Yemen, and these contacts were confirmed by Djibouti Foreign Minister Mahmoud Ali Youssef in a press interview with him on 4 December 2016 when he indicated that his government had agreed “in principle” to establish a Saudi base in Djibouti that welcomes the Saudi military presence on its territory.Youssef referred to the exchange of visits between officials of the two countries during the last period, “where a draft security, military and strategic agreement has already been drawn up between them, which will be signed soon.” He explained that Saudi officials have made field visits to Djibouti to determine the most appropriate sites, pointing out that there is no political reason preventing the establishment of the base, And that if there was a delay, it would be for technical reasons, and that his country agreed and even encouraged that the Kingdom and any Arab country have a military presence on its territory in view of what is happening in the region, and a newspaper confirmedFinancial Times On January 19, 2017, the Arabic language website quoted it in an English-language statement by Djiboutian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Ali Youssef in which he indicated that “Djibouti concluded a security agreement last year with Saudi Arabia that allows it to establish a military base in Djibouti,” and said, “The military cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia will be signed soon. In Riyadh ”.

The Saudi military base in Djibouti means a lot, but the most important thing is that Saudi Arabia, for the first time in the history of its military planning, is in contact with the Horn of Africa, starting from the protrusion of the Bab al-Mandab strait, and then Yemen and Djibouti currently represent and one bloc for the Saudi military is one front on two domains distributed over them The Saudi naval, land, air and security military efforts, and perhaps with its allies, are in a common pattern, and accordingly, the southern axis has become for the Saudi military a purely security military axis that can be imagined to develop Saudi Arabia with the US military command for Africa, AFRICOM., As the Yemen war, with the current calculations of the weights of the regional powers in the Middle East and the difference and even clashing of its strategic objectives, which were revealed by the Yemen war, made the Saudi and American military relationship work within two overlapping frameworks, namely, the framework of the Middle East and the Horn of Africa. The current conflict in it confirmed the British policy view that saw Aden and Yemen as part of the Middle East * ( The Middle East 1961. Considering their direct relationship with the security of the Arabian Peninsula and the Suez Canal, so the developments of the Saudi confrontation in Yemen led to a flexible expansion of the scene of confrontations to the extent that it extended to Djibouti, i.e. to the Horn of Africa, and Djibouti was for a long time away from Saudi military calculations, but it was not also about aid The Saudi financier was not linked to any Saudi security or military interests, but was linked to the issue of Islamic solidarity only, and therefore, according to the emerging relationship between Djibouti and the security of the Arabian Peninsula, it can be seen as a common denominator for the security of the Horn of Africa and the Middle East together.

The Saudi military / security situation in Yemen obligated the Kingdom to extend its security / military strategy to Africa, specifically to Djibouti, which has become a communication node.   Hub between the Middle East and the Horn of Africa for the Saudi Military  MethodolgyTherefore, the US / Saudi move was early to expand the scope of the conflict over Yemen between Iran and Saudi Arabia to reach an important part of the African continent. After Saudi Arabia announced the Operation Decisive Storm in March 2015, specifically on April 17, 2015, the AFRICOM website published  Of the US Military Command for Africa that this command has invited – for the first time – about twenty-five Saudi officers to attend a “war course” intended for these officers nominated for senior military leadership positions in the Kingdom for a year at the headquarters in Stuttgart. In Germany, the site referred to a statement made by the retired general Muhammad Qubban accompanying the Saudi mission, in which he indicated that “there are common interests with you – that is, with the US military command for Africa – and there are common areas in which we can build an understanding and there are opportunities to work together.” The Saudi war in Yemen led to the development of the Saudi military for its strategy, so that it met for the first time with the African military boycott based on its military base in Djibouti, which the Kingdom and its government ended an agreement on, so that the Saudi military became on one line with the interests of the American, French and Chinese military (China opened its military base in Djibouti in 2016. As there are 10,000 military personnel (in Africa, and from an odd angle that includes Yemen and the Horn of Africa together, each of these international forces has a military base in Djibouti), according to what JOL Journalism published.  On January 27, 2017, he indicated that the Djiboutian government asked the US authorities to evacuate the US military base in Djiboutian territory despite the massive investments that amounted to $ 14 million that the US government spent in Obock port. Djibouti, in what is considered another Chinese strike against the United States’ military strategy in Africa after the strike it received on December 20, 2016 in Saotome) and this Saudi base – which represents an unprecedented approach to the Saudi military – aroused Egyptian criticism, according to what was published in the newspaper Al-Araby Al-Jadeed on 6 December 2016 – which is not yet confirmed – The newspaper referred to Egyptian diplomatic sources on December 6, 2016 saying that Cairo began about a month ago moves to stop the agreement between Saudi Arabia and Djibouti to establish a military base for the Kingdom at the entrances to the Gulf of Aden, and these sources added that Egypt rejects this The complete agreement, considering that these areas are accounted for by Egyptian diplomatic influence that falls within the scope of its national security, as it is an Egyptian strategic depth in the far south.Nevertheless, it must be noted that what was quoted from these sources in an Arab newspaper does not express an official Egyptian point of view – until now – as it is not imagined that the official Egyptian point of view – assuming the validity or the conformity of what was reported from the Egyptian diplomatic source with what the Ministry has The Foreign Ministry and the Egyptian intelligence information – at this far distance from the facts and historical precedents and from the reality and its developments, especially with regard to the current geo-military reality of Djibouti, but there is evidence that Egypt is looking to develop its military role in the Red Sea, and that is why it sought to expand the scope of its operations in the southern Red Sea At Bab al-Mandeb and without it through the purchase of a submarine, helicopter carrier, etc. and joining it to its naval fleet, which the Egyptian Naval Command defines as the “Southern Fleet”, a reference to the Red Sea, and after the direction and the southern strategic effort of the Egyptian military devotes its meaning primarily to securing the sources of the Nile through the effort Air and land military,The Egyptian military priorities have now become or have changed, it seems, to the southern direction in the Red Sea and not to its north (the Gulf of Aqaba at the Strait of Tiran and the Strait of Gopal in the Gulf of Suez). So there are changes in the Saudi and Egyptian military outlook, so when we find a contraction in the Egyptian military naval effort after the agreement to define The Egyptian-Saudi maritime border in the Gulf of Aqaba, signed in Cairo on April 8, 2016, voluntarily and without legal and historical consideration of the islands of Tiran and Sanafir to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, thus withdrawing the Egyptian military interest from the Gulf of Aqaba and replacing it with an Egyptian maritime interest in Bab al-Mandab, while we find an expansion in the Saudi military view of the sea Al-Ahmar sought to seek north and seize the islands of Tiran and Sanafir according to an unannounced Saudi arrangement for its future relations with the Gulf of Aqaba countries, including Israel,In conjunction with moving south and stationing in a military base agreed upon with the government of Djibouti, so that the Red Sea in its northern straits at Tiran and the southern at Bab al-Mandab is under Saudi control, albeit in two different degrees and with two different objectives within one strategy.

(2) Middle axis :

It is the bilateral axis that was previously discussed above, and I add to the aforementioned reference that a purely economic axis falls within the entirety of the Saudi economic strategy that adopts the principle of diversifying sources of national income for the kingdom, despite the Saudi agreement signed with Sudan in May 1974 regarding joint exploration and exploitation. The Red Sea bed and the subsoil resources have no analogues between Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries (and Eritrea). However, it confirms that Saudi Arabia has various economic interests in the Red Sea, the most important of which is in the central region thereof with Sudan, which is an agreement that responds to the high degree of consensus that is available as Relative to the Saadawi / Sudanese bilateral relations – as the aforementioned signal – which is clearly not available in Saudi relations with other countries bordering the Red Sea,But in any case, Saudi action in this axis can also be described as strategic, which confirms until further notice that the Kingdom now considers the Red Sea to be no less than the Arabian Gulf within its economic and military strategy together, and it will then work to develop this economic strategy, but in conjunction with reaching the implementation of its military strategy. In the south and north of the Red Sea to the boundary point, or to say as much as possible, a position in control of the Red Sea may be secured for it, in which only Israel and the countries that have military bases in Djibouti and Eritrea (Israel) may contest.It will then work to develop this economic strategy, but in conjunction with reaching the implementation of its military strategy in the south and north of the Red Sea to the border point, or to transfer to the maximum extent possible a position in control of the Red Sea may only be contested by Israel and the countries that have military bases in Djibouti and Eritrea. (Israel).It will then work to develop this economic strategy, but in conjunction with reaching the implementation of its military strategy in the south and north of the Red Sea to the border point, or to transfer to the maximum extent possible a position in control of the Red Sea may only be contested by Israel and the countries that have military bases in Djibouti and Eritrea. (Israel).

(3) The northern axis :

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia did not have a serious or developed interest in this axis, which is specifically represented by the Gulf of Aqaba, whose length from Eilat to Tiran Island is approximately 100 miles, while the total length of the coast of this Gulf from its entrance is about 230 km, including 125 km for Egypt, 96 km for Saudi Arabia and 15 Km to Jordan and 4 km to Israel and in this Gulf several ports, the most important of which are Aqaba, the Jordanian, Eilat, the Israeli, and Nuweiba in Egypt, and its width ranges between 7 to 8 miles, and it is relatively shallow at its head and increases in depth even as it reaches approximately 2160, and the deepest point in it is the one in the middle of it. The depth reaches 4,600 feet, and the islands of Tiran and Sanafir are divided into the southern entrance, which is 6 miles wide, into 3 parts or corridors, the widest of which is located between the Sinai coast and the island of Tiran, so its width there is 3.7 miles.

The Cairo Post website indicated On July 30, 2015, and Al-Araby Al-Jadeed newspaper website on the second of August 2015 with reference to a statement issued by the Egyptian Presidency that Egypt and Saudi Arabia agreed to demarcate their maritime borders in the Red Sea and that this matter was agreed upon between the Egyptian President and the Saudi Minister of Defense who participated during his visit to Egypt in the celebration With the graduation of a batch from the Military Academy at the end of July 2015, and in fact, the maritime border file between the two countries is one of the few pending files, but nevertheless it must be said that the timing of the Saudi move to open this delicate and thorny file with Egypt is what aroused concern to some and suspicion among some. The other and the confusion among others, and the history of the file and the main factors affecting it may explain why the timing of the opening of this file is a question worthy of suspicion as much as it is worthy of concern and even fear of the entirety of the hypothetical relations involved in what has been termed “Arab National Security”,The ill-considered signing of the agreement defining the maritime borders between Egypt and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on April 8, 2016 within the framework of the Saudi King’s visit to Cairo contributed to the complexity of the file, especially since Egypt’s plundering of the islands of Tiran and Sanafir comes and Egypt is at its weakest after the revolution of 25 January 2011, just as Ethiopia did by announcing The construction of the Renaissance Dam in March 2011 at a time when the Egyptian military establishment was concerned with securing its position in Egyptian politics and preserving the gains it had acquired during the era of ousted President Mubarak, and consequently the agreement provoked the feelings of the vast majority of the Egyptian people who were overwhelmed by a sense of humiliation that led to developments. Punishment directed at the people for its revolution for the first time in its history since the era of the Pharaohs.

It is not certain that the northern axis represents a concern for the Saudi military, as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia avoided being a country directly confronting Israel in the wars of June 1967 and October 1973, even if it was a state that supported the war effort for the Arab confrontation countries after the defeat of June 5, 1967, according to the decisions of the Khartoum summit. The axis (southern with regard to Israel and including Sinai and the Gulf of Aqaba) is still considered in the mind of the Israeli military plan a military direction, but it undoubtedly is no longer the case for its Egyptian counterpart and the sign of that Egyptian voluntary surrender of the islands of Tiran and Sanafir to Saudi Arabia on April 8, 2016, from the historical point of view the Gulf of Aqaba began It represents a mutual military threat to Egypt and Israel when, on September 25, 1955, David Ben-Gurion, the Israeli Prime Minister, repeated his threat to use force to secure Israel’s right to use it freely, repeating saying that he had set a time limit of a year or less so that the Egyptians would stop preventing Israel from passing through it freely,Adding as saying that he will seek to open talks with the Egyptian president as soon as the facilities for the port of Eilat are completed, and the Egyptian response to this was to further tighten the anti-Israel embargo measures, and on September 5, 1955, Egypt reaffirmed the prohibition of Israeli navigation in the Gulf and indicated that the regional boycott office of Israel In Alexandria, he is the only one authorized to issue permission for ships to pass through the Egyptian territorial waters in the Gulf of Aqaba and the Straits of Tiran, and in a climate of political and propaganda escalation between the parties to the Suez Crisis after the Egyptian President’s decision to nationalize the Suez Canal Company on July 26, 1956, Egypt, Syria and Jordan were formed. On October 24, 1956, a military alliance was appointed and a military commander was appointed for this alliance, and Israel claimed that it was facing a direct and very close danger that required it to move quickly, althoughThe Egyptian response to this was to further tighten the prohibition measures against Israel, and on September 5, 1955 Egypt reaffirmed the ban on Israeli navigation in the Gulf and indicated that the regional boycott office of Israel in Alexandria is the only one authorized to issue permission for ships to pass through Egyptian territorial waters in The Gulf of Aqaba and the Straits of Tiran, and in an atmosphere of political and propaganda escalation between the parties to the Suez Crisis after the Egyptian President’s decision to nationalize the Suez Canal Company on July 26, 1956, Egypt, Syria and Jordan formed on October 24, 1956 a military alliance and a military commander was appointed for this alliance, and Israel claimed It is facing a very close and immediate danger that requires it to move quickly thoughThe Egyptian response to this was to further tighten the prohibition measures against Israel, and on September 5, 1955 Egypt reaffirmed the ban on Israeli navigation in the Gulf and indicated that the regional boycott office of Israel in Alexandria is the only one authorized to issue permission for ships to pass through Egyptian territorial waters in The Gulf of Aqaba and the Straits of Tiran, and in an atmosphere of political and propaganda escalation between the parties to the Suez Crisis after the Egyptian President’s decision to nationalize the Suez Canal Company on July 26, 1956, Egypt, Syria and Jordan formed on October 24, 1956 a military alliance and a military commander was appointed for this alliance, and Israel claimed It is facing a very close and immediate danger that requires it to move quickly thoughOn September 5, 1955, Egypt reaffirmed the prohibition of Israeli navigation in the Gulf and indicated that the regional boycott office of Israel in Alexandria is the only one authorized to issue permission for ships to pass through Egyptian territorial waters in the Gulf of Aqaba and the Straits of Tiran, and in an atmosphere of political and propaganda escalation between the parties to a crisis Suez After the Egyptian President’s decision to nationalize the Suez Canal Company on July 26, 1956, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan formed a military alliance on October 24, 1956, and a military commander was appointed for this alliance.

Israel claimed that it faces a direct and very close danger that requires swift action from it despite the fact thatOn September 5, 1955, Egypt reaffirmed the prohibition of Israeli navigation in the Gulf and indicated that the regional boycott office of Israel in Alexandria is the only one authorized to issue permission for ships to pass through Egyptian territorial waters in the Gulf of Aqaba and the Straits of Tiran, and in an atmosphere of political and propaganda escalation between the parties to a crisis Suez After the Egyptian President’s decision to nationalize the Suez Canal Company on July 26, 1956, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan formed a military alliance on October 24, 1956, and a military commander was appointed for this alliance. Israel claimed that it faces a direct and very close danger that requires swift action from it despite the fact thatAnd Israel claimed that it faces a very immediate and very close danger that requires it to move quickly, despite thatAnd Israel claimed that it faces a very immediate and very close danger that requires it to move quickly, despite thatHanson Baldwin He is a military specialist who wrote at the time for The New York Times He pointed out to me that “after he personally lost the Egyptian military centers and installations prior to the Israeli invasion of the Sinai Peninsula, it became clear that the bulk of the Egyptian army is located on the western side of the canal and that there is no actual indication of any imminent Egyptian attack.”

The dispute over the issue of sovereignty over the two islands began when Egypt notified the UN Security Council on February 15, 1954 that the two islands had formed Egyptian territory since 1906 when the borders between Egypt and the Ottoman Empire were marked and that World War II records include official evidence that Egyptian units used the islands as part of the system. The Egyptian defense system during the World War, and away from the issue of the two islands, the Saudi position regarding what is known as the Suez Crisis and the tripartite aggression was a position that is less than what is described as being responsible, because after the Israeli forces occupied the Sinai Peninsula in what was called the tripartite aggression against Egypt and about Israel’s refusal to respond by implementing United Nations General Assembly resolutions that decided to withdraw Israeli forces from the Sinai Peninsula and link their withdrawal to demands, the most important of which is guaranteeing their right to pass through the Suez Canal and the Gulf of Aqaba,King Saud contacted President Gamal Abdel Nasser and assured him of his readiness and his army to stand together with men, money and weapons with Egypt, and the Kingdom decided to cut its diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom and France for their aggression against Egypt. King Saud cabled the American president  Eisenhower He asked him to stop the aggression against Egypt, warning him that if the states did not act positively, the matter would develop into a big chasm between the Middle East and the West, and the king told the American ambassador, “King Abdul Aziz and I myself have been living in tents for fifty years and there is no problem for me to return. For tents again, if I find it necessary to do so in defense of the Arabs and Egypt, since living in tents is better for me than colonial countries controlling the Arabs ”, and in view of the Western position in support of Israel’s right to navigate the Suez Canal and the Gulf of Aqaba, which was evident when the United States cooperated with the Secretary General The United Nations in implementing the UN resolution on freedom of navigation in the Gulf of Aqaba, and in April 1957 it sent a transfer of 16,000 tons of oil that arrived at the port of Eilat under the escort of the International Emergency Force, thus affirming the principle of freedom of navigation in the Gulf of Aqaba,Therefore, the Kingdom saw that this position was a reward for Israel for its aggression. Therefore, on March 31, 1957, the Saudi government circulated a memorandum to the missions of friendly governments in Jeddah in which it confirmed that the two islands are Saudi property. Then, in April 1957, it submitted a memorandum to the Secretary-General of the United Nations in April 1957 and requested its distribution to countries. Members of the United Nations referred to Israel’s attacks on the Arabs, and refuted its efforts to create an imaginary right of passage through the Gulf of Aqaba, about which it made clear that it is an Arab Gulf at its southern entrance to the Saudi islands of Tiran and Sanafir, and the memo indicated in this regard that the entrance to the Gulf is no more than nine miles wide It is much narrower than other straits, which international law considers as regional waters,This is fully confirmed by the “Treaty of Constantinople in 1888” which guaranteed freedom of navigation in the Suez Canal. The memorandum thus considered that the Gulf of Aqaba is a closed Arab lake in which the principle of international freedom of navigation does not apply and that giving it an international status is an attack on the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and a threat to its territorial integrity. Likewise, the two islands and the straits separating them are under the sovereignty and law of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Among the striking incidents that may shed light on the potential relationship of Saudi Arabia in the event of its possession of Tiran Island is what was reported by a telegram to the US State Department released in accordance with the American information law related to the Strait of Tiran crisis, dated January 17, 1968 sent by the US Secretary of State Dean Rusk To the American embassy in Israel, the US ambassador delivered its contents to the Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban, in which the US Secretary of State referred to his Israeli counterpart to what he said “that the continued presence of Israeli forces in Tiran Island was one of the issues discussed during the friendly discussions that took place with the Israeli Prime Minister  Eshkol. In TexasWe have noticed that the Israeli Prime Minister is challenged by the desire to show his country public indications about its welcome to reach an understanding with the Arabs and suggested that the withdrawal of your forces from Tiran is an example of what is going on in our minds, and the Prime Minister expressed his understanding of that point of view, but he indicated that it would be It is difficult to think carefully about the issue of withdrawal from Tiran in the absence of assurances regarding the results of this action on Israel, and since the exchange of views on this matter with the Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol He was encouraging, as I directed the United States ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to explore this issue further with King Faisal, and indeed our ambassador had a frank discussion on this issue with His Majesty on January 13 (1968), and the King’s comment on that was if he clearly said that he is looking at Tiran Island on me. It is (1) part of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and that his government has granted a concession covering the island, and (2) that he has no plan to militarize Tiran or use it to obstruct freedom of navigation in the Strait of Tiran. ” The US Secretary of State went on to indicate to the Israeli Foreign Minister that “he felt greatly encouraged by the stance of the King of Saudi Arabia regarding this matter, and that based on his assurances to our ambassador, I believe that the problems that the Israeli side expects if your government (the Israeli forces) withdraws will not arise.” I also specifically expect that the Saudi position on this part of Saudi territory will not change, nor do I expect militarization or its use (Tiran) in any kind of interference with the freedom of navigation through the Straits of Tiran, and for this I hope that your government will now consider the possibility of the withdrawal of your forces from the island. Without incurring any disastrous consequences for Israel, and as I indicated to your government early on, this behavior (the Israeli withdrawal from Tiran Island) would remove serious problems stuck in your relationship with the Saudi authorities, and therefore I look forward to receiving a favorable response from your government, and it will be informed immediately. Of course, for King Faisal, and I am not sure of the beneficial practical effect of that. ” The US Secretary of State appended his speech to his Israeli counterpart regarding the proposal to withdraw Israeli forces from Tiran Island with a note stating “keeping the matter secret.”

In fact, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia distanced itself during the wars of the tripartite aggression in October 1956 and June 5, 1967 from claiming the islands of Tiran and Sanafir, and it is certain that this was not related to truth or lack thereof as much as it was related to Saudi Arabia’s appreciation of the majesty of the battle that Egypt was waging and its role in the Arab-Israeli conflict, but how Can a country claim the devolution of a land or island while it lacks the documentary basis for its claim? , And the truth is that Egypt’s position regarding the devolution of the islands of Tiran and Sanafir to them is supported by a documentary and judicial authority, especially after the recent ruling of the Egyptian Supreme Administrative Court “examining appeals” issued on January 16, 2017, which supported Egypt’s right and sovereignty over them by invalidating the agreement on demarcating the maritime borders between Egypt and Saudi Arabia and invalidating their assignment He rejected the Egyptian government’s appeal.

Among the arguments that support the Egyptian position – and perhaps many did not pay attention to it – regarding its sovereignty over the island of Tiran, I personally came across during my Hajj pilgrimage in November 2011 in the Library of the Noble Prophet’s Mosque on the Atlas of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in its first edition issued by the Ministry of Higher Education (the Secretariat) The public to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Kingdom) on 1419 AH 1999 AD, and I draw my attention to that in one of his maps of the Saudi lands on the Gulf of Aqaba, I found that Tiran Island and Sanafir Island were left without coloring like the rest of the kingdom’s lands on that map, and there was no arc or any Another sign in front of the island, as it happens in international maps, by placing the half of the arc in front of the islands to indicate its dependence on the lands of this or that country, and therefore not placing the half of the arc in front of the islands of Tiran and Sanafir in the aforementioned Saudi Atlas means without any doubt that they are not affiliated with the Saudi region,Also, by my review of Appendix (A) of geographical and alphabetical names, which are included in this entire atlas, I verified that the islands of Tiran and Sanafir are not included in the geographical names record therein, and this is supported by the fact that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia submitted a study to the regional commission for the program for the protection of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden environment, which is A body that included at the time 7 countries, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, referred to the legal and environmental conditions in the field of natural reserves, including the islands scattered in the Red Sea, and it was noted that this Saudi study did not include the islands of Tiran and Sanafir, while it was exposed to the natural reserves in the Saudi islands of Farasan and Umm al-Qamari only.This is supported by the fact that when the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia submitted a study to the regional commission for the program to protect the environment of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, a body that included at the time 7 countries, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, it referred to the legal and environmental conditions in the field of natural reserves, including the islands scattered in the Red Sea, and it was noted that this Saudi study did not include The islands of Tiran and Sanafir were exposed, while the natural reserves of Forsan and Umm al-Qamari islands were exposed in Saudi Arabia only.This is supported by the fact that when the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia submitted a study to the regional commission for the program to protect the environment of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, a body that included at the time 7 countries, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, it referred to the legal and environmental conditions in the field of natural reserves, including the islands scattered in the Red Sea, and it was noted that this Saudi study did not include The islands of Tiran and Sanafir were exposed, while the natural reserves of Farasan and Umm Al Qamari islands were exposed in Saudi Arabia only.

In my estimation that the northern axis in the Red Sea differs from the southern and central axes in that a conflict arose in it after Egypt and Saudi Arabia signed an agreement on April 8, 2016 whereby Egypt voluntarily ceded the islands of Tiran and Sanafir. In the possibility of achieving it, just as this axis and because it is related to the heritage of the Egyptian military and not definitely to the heritage of the Saudi military, it will have a negative impact on the splendor of the Saudi image on the Egyptian conscience as it has the same and perhaps greater impact on the future of bilateral military relations between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as Tiran Island is a military focal point for Egypt. While it is a commercial project for Saudi Arabia, no more, no less,Otherwise, the Kingdom would have objected to the inclusion of the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel signed between them on March 26, 1979, which is the treaty which, in its second article regarding delineation of final lines and regions, referred to clause (c) that “Area C” which is bounded on the west by Line B (Green Line) From the east, the international borders and the Gulf of Aqaba are stationed in Area C, where the United Nations forces and the Egyptian Civil Police are stationed only, and that the international forces are distributed within Area C and perform their limited functions in Article VI of the Annex to this Agreement. These forces are mainly stationed in camps located within Concentration areas are indicated on the map attached to the text of the treaty within a range of approximately 20 km, provided that their locations are determined after consultation with Egypt in that part of the region in the Sinai, which lies within approximately 20 km from the Mediterranean Sea and adjacent to the international borders as well as in the Sharm el-Sheikh area ”,The treaty also referred in its sixth article in Clause 2 – (d) to what it says: “Ensuring freedom of navigation in the Strait of Tiran in accordance with Article 5 of the Peace Treaty. In addition, Map No. (1) attached to the treaty we find in it the Green Line that includes the islands of Tiran and Sanafir together as they are. Within the scope of Area C or (C) * (12It is worth noting that the forces now in Area (C) are not affiliated with the United Nations, but rather are multinational forces that are funded by Egypt, Israel and the United States, as the peace treaty referred to in the United Nations has not been documented.

I think that the northern axis – as previously mentioned – has nothing to do with Saudi military interests, unlike the case of the southern axis, according to the information available so far that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and not Egypt has taken the initiative to move and request the demarcation of the maritime borders with the latter, according to which it can be concluded that the Saudi desire In completing this demarcation, it meets a current or potential Saudi need for the Kingdom, and this need is irrelevant or unrelated to the current military ambitions in which Saudi Arabia is fighting its war with the Houthis in Yemen and thus with Iran in Yemen at the southern entrance to the Red Sea, and the Kingdom, not Egypt, was the one. She took the initiative, expanded, and even insisted on signing an agreement to demarcate these borders on April 8, 2016, as the Saudi effort after the end of the Mubarak era in this matter began with two visits by the head of the Saudi Survey Authority to Cairo on January 9 and in July 2012,But the two visits, although they did not produce a positive result, except that after the death of King Abdullah, Saudi insistence continued at a higher pace, especially with the start of the collapse of the Egyptian economic situation and the regularity of political instability in it for various reasons, and the Saudis replaced the usual negotiation method with the barter method to wrest sovereignty over the two islands, especially since that It has kept pace with the turmoil of the situation in the region, leading to polarizations and alliances, as well as intersecting lines between the main powers in the Middle East, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which must have opened a direct or indirect line of communication with Israel, considering it an indirect party in the completion of the April 8 agreement, and thus it was – and still is – Ali Be aware of the agreement before signing it, with or without coordination,Accordingly, the agreement to define the maritime borders between Saudi Arabia and Egypt in the Gulf of Aqaba led to the completion of the communication network between the four Gulf states of Aqaba, Israel and three Arab countries, namely Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, which postponed their claim to the two islands, citing patience for a long time more than 55 years, or half a century, so I think the urgency The Saudi government found its misguidance in the weakness and indolence of Egypt, so pressures were applied to win the two islands, which I believe that the Saudi urgent need for them is based on a plan that coincides with the stabilization of the matter for Israel within the Gulf of Aqaba with the disappearance of the Arab desire and ability to completely close the Strait of Tiran to its navigation.Therefore, I think that the Saudi insistence found its misfortune in the weakness and indolence of Egypt, so pressures were applied to win the two islands, for which I believe that the Saudi urgent need for them is based on a plan that coincides with the stabilization of the matter for Israel within the Gulf of Aqaba with the disappearance of the Arab desire and ability to completely close the Strait of Tiran to its navigation.Therefore, I think that the Saudi insistence found its misfortune in the weakness and indolence of Egypt, so pressures were applied to conquer the two islands, for which I believe that the Saudi urgent need for them is based on a plan that coincides with the stabilization of the matter for Israel within the Gulf of Aqaba with the disappearance of the Arab desire and ability to completely close the Strait of Tiran to its navigation.

Which confirms that the northern axis is economic within the scope of the Saudi strategy for the Red Sea. It was pointed out that the Saudi move to complete the agreement to define the maritime borders with Egypt, which resulted in an Egyptian voluntary concession on the islands of Tiran and Sanafir, comes after and within the framework of developments related to unprecedented logistical economic benefits inside the Gulf of Aqaba or Close to it, on December 9, 2013, Israel, the Kingdom of Jordan and the Palestinian Authority signed a memorandum of understanding in Washington to start work on the Bahrain Canal under the auspices of the World Bank. It is a project that aims to connect the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba to face the diminishing level of the Dead Sea water, in addition to other matters of economic return. Its first phase began with Jordan and Israel signing, in the absence of the Palestinian Authority, an agreement regarding it to establish a water torment project on February 26, 2015, and to deliver salt water from the Gulf of Aqaba to the Dead Sea through a 200 km long canal.In 2015, Egypt announced a project to establish a new tributary parallel to the Suez Canal that would increase the traffic capacity of the canal, which unfortunately did not lead to an increase in the canal’s revenues due to the contraction of international trade, and it also comes in the context of its inception when the Kingdom played a role in the diplomacy of the ongoing conflict in the East. Al-Awsat between Israel and the Arab countries through its presentation of what was called the Arab initiative or the initiative of Prince / Abdullah at the Arab summit conference in Beirut on March 28, 2002, an initiative that Israel did not accept in practice,However, this initiative unequivocally indicates the Saudi readiness to coexist with Israel at the last point reached by the feet of the Israeli military, like other Arab confrontation countries with Israel, in addition to the lame Palestinian Authority, and this simply means that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia may pave the way for a key economic project in the Gulf. Aqaba is related to the islands of Tiran and Sanafir. It requires settling the issue of its maritime borders with Egypt first, so that Egypt has no connection to this project, which Saudi Arabia may share with another capable party from the Gulf of Aqaba countries, and then the Egyptian part of these borders is necessary, but inevitable, settling it before announcing the initiation In this project, which I expect to be either of a commercial, tourism nature, linking the two islands with Saudi lands, similar to linking Bahrain to the Saudi coast, or of an energy-fueled nature that Israel and the European Union countries benefit from ,This expectation may be justified in addition to the foregoing that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia took care of the northern region of it and implemented the policy of “industrial settlement” in it. It set up industrial and petrochemical projects in Yanbu and established within the framework of a policy of reducing dependence on the export of Saudi oil from the Arabian Gulf ports by adding an export outlet for it in Yanbu on the Red Sea. Through the petroleum line extending 1220 km from the oil fields in Abqaiq to the port of Yanbu carrying approximately 2 million barrels / day, a line that was originally an extension of the Egyptian “Sumed” line, which the Arab Gulf states participated in financing its establishment by 50% and it was completed and started entering The service was in 1977, and one of his lines at that time was devoted to transporting Saudi oil, but it must be noted, however, that it is not natural to imagine Saudi oil arriving in Israel through the Gulf of Aqaba unless we drop logical and historical considerations from our calculations.But if we did not drop it, a Saudi oil pipeline that crosses the Gulf of Aqaba to reach Israel will only be justified by a supposed deal to complete the settlement of the Palestinian part linked and stuck in the Arab-Israeli conflict so far, something that one finds himself unable to imagine, let alone accept.

It is clear that the interest of the countries of the Gulf of Aqaba and the eastern Mediterranean regions in signing agreements to define maritime borders has economic motives more than political motives in which businessmen and not politicians play the decisive role, and then we find flawed agreements in terms of technical standards or standards of international law. The Arab Republic of Egypt and the Republic of Cyprus signed an agreement on the date February 17, 2003 to plan the boundaries of the exclusive economic zone consisting of five articles and an appendix showing the coordinates of the designation of the exclusive economic zone of Egypt. The agreement referred in its preamble to the United Nations Treaty on the Law of the Sea of ​​December 10, 1982, and Israel and Cyprus signed an agreement to define the boundaries of the exclusive economic zone in Nicosia on 17 December 2010 included five articles and was also referred to in its preamble to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea dated December 10, 1982, and then Saudi Arabia and Egypt signed their agreement on April 8, 2016.It is noted that Egypt’s handling of the issue of marking its sea and land borders with all neighboring countries was done in a calm manner and without any open or exposed tension.Very Low Profile  With the exception of the border dispute with Sudan in Halayeb, which was managed by Egypt and Sudan with the greatest amount of tension and negatively affected the system of bilateral relations, and the Egyptian handling of the issue of determining the maritime borders with Saudi Arabia and thus determining the fate of the islands of Tiran and Sanafir in a series of sessions lacks responsibility for a large degree of difference in dealing With the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which despite its high position in the Arab and Islamic world, in my estimation it does not represent like Sudan a strategic number in the Egyptian national security equation, Sudan is linked at least to the Egyptian water security and it is the cornerstone of Egypt’s national security this in addition to the direct geographical neighborhood and its relationship to the component and demographic movements Expected between the two countries that will result from the construction of the Renaissance Dam.

The agreement to define the maritime borders between Saudi Arabia in the Gulf of Aqaba, which resulted in a voluntary surrender by Egypt of its sovereignty over the islands of Tiran and Sanafir, was, in my opinion, a concession justified by considerations that are stronger than the right to the extent that they deny it, and this agreement – on its insignificance and weakness – in my opinion It is also considered an announcement of the birth of the northern Saudi axis completed by the Red Sea, And it is an axis, although it is purely economic, but by the Caesarian way in which he was born, it will generate a renewable struggle between the Egyptian people and their leadership and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as it will arise – because of the approach that the Kingdom followed in making the Gulf of Aqaba a northern axis of its strategy for the Red Sea by placing its hand on The islands of Tiran and Sanafir – different political relations and repercussions that refer the Arab-Israeli conflict in its traditional text and spirit to history or stories, because the devolution of Tiran Island in a special way to Saudi Arabia will mean directly and simply the end of its use of an Egyptian spearhead in any supposed military confrontation between Egypt and Israel, on the other hand, it cannot To imagine that Israel agrees to a radical change in the text of the peace treaty it signed with Egypt on March 26, 1979, which refers to the two islands’ Egypt, with a multinational peace-keeping force stationed in one of them, without Saudi Arabia bargaining for that, otherwise Israel would not be the Israel we know,Therefore, by recalling what former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres said at the Davos Economic Forum several years ago, we can imagine the nature of this trade-off – even if one notices another fact that is different from its essence – he said in the context of his presentation of the plan for economic integration in the Middle East, that it is achieved through Israeli experience or mind. And the Gulf money, then what is left of the Arab-Israeli conflict and its pains and wounds that have aggravated the Palestinians and the peoples of the confrontation countries after most Arab leaders abandoned their leadership ethics?So what remains of the Arab-Israeli conflict and its pains and wounds that have aggravated the Palestinians and the peoples of the confrontation countries after most Arab leaders abandoned the leadership ethics?So what remains of the Arab-Israeli conflict and its pains and wounds that have aggravated the Palestinians and the peoples of the confrontation countries after most Arab leaders abandoned the leadership ethics?

The Arab Democratic Center –  Cairo: Posted on January 28, 2017