Days after the visit of South Sudan’s President Silva Kiir to Egypt and the talks about a tripartite alliance between Cairo, Juba, and Uganda to siege Ethiopia and Sudan, Al-Khartoum renewed its complaint against Egypt in the UN Security Council.
During Salva Kiir’s visit to Cairo, an Egyptian newspaper al-Dostour published an article titled: “In Cooperation between Cairo, Juba, and Uganda… Egypt leads a tripartite alliance to siege Ethiopia.”
The Egyptian newspaper mentioned that Egypt seeks to enhance its movements in Africa and especially with the Nile basin countries.
It also reported that Egypt, Juba, and Uganda currently form a tripartite alliance its main target to siege Ethiopia, support Egypt’s interests in the region and put pressure on Addis Ababa’s government if necessary.
Moreover, one of Egypt’s top priority to enhance its influence in Sudan to put pressure on Omar Hassan al-Bashir’s regime if the situation escalated especially that al-Bashir’s policy toward Egypt is changeable and unstable.
In addition, al-Bashir backs Ethiopia against Egypt, according to al-Dostour newspaper.
In this context, a Sudanese diplomatic source said that his country renewed its compliant against Egypt in the UN Security Council to reconsider the borders between both countries, referring to Halai’b and Shalateen area.
In fact,al-Khartoum has called Cairo for direct negotiations regrading Halai’b and Shalateen case similar to what has been implemented with Saudi Arabia regarding Tiran and Sanafir islands that the Egyptian government has announced that they belong to Saudi Arabia last April during King Salman’s visit to Egypt.
However, the controversial agreement has caused massive public criticism and outrage among the Egyptians, before Egypt’s High Administrative Court’s final ruling that rejected the transfer of the islands to Saudi Arabia.
In addition, the diplomatic source, who preferred to remain anonymous, added,”The permanent mission of Sudan at the United Nations has been contacted on January 5,2017 to keep Sudan’s complaint at the Security Council under consideration which was submitted on 20-2-1958 over the Egyptian borders.”
It is noteworthy that Sudan has called more than once in an official way to restore back its right over Halai’b and Shalateen.
The Hala’ib triangle, which is a 20,580-km area on the Red Sea, has been a disputable issue between Egypt and Sudan since 1958, shortly after Sudan gained its independence from the British-Egyptian rule in January 1956.
Since the mid-1990’s, the area has been under Cairo’s full military control.
Last April, Cairo refused a demand by the Sudanese government to hold direct negotiations on Hala’ib and Shalateen or to accept the referral of the dispute to the International Court of Arbitration.
Egypt has used to reject Sudan’s repeated calls for referring the dispute to international arbitration.
The international law stipulates that the agreement of the two parties is needed to arbitrate a dispute by the tribunal.
Moreover, the Egyptian authorities have imposed restrictions on the entry of Sudanese nationals into the area.
