Office of the Historian

774.5/4–1151

Translation

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry to the Embassy in Egypt 1

confidential

Aide-Mémoire

The Israeli advance towards the Gulf of Akaba in violation of the truce2 imposed by the Security Council and the General Armistice Agreement3 is a cause of serious concern for Egypt owing to the prevailing tension in the Middle East and the state of war between the Arabs and Jews.

2. Measures of safeguard and security have been necessary. One of these measures has been, as is well-known, the occupation of the islets of Tiran and Sinafir to affirm the sovereign rights of the Kingdom of Egypt over these Egyptian islets situated not far from the ingress to the Gulf of Akaba.4

3. The appropriate Egyptian authorities have recently had recourse to another measure of security by declaring as a zone forbidden for navigation the maritime surface west of an imaginary line extending straight from Eas Nusrani to Eas Muhammad in the South Eastern part of the Sinai Peninsula and at the ingress to the Gulf of Akaba. By its geographical position this zone is away from the maritime route usually followed by boats wishing to penetrate into the Gulf of Akaba from the Eed Sea or vice versa.

4. Although sovereign of the Akaba Strait, also called the Tiran Strait and situated entirely within the boundaries of her territorial waters, Egypt does not intend to prohibit the innocent passage of warships or commercial boats of friendly countries, in their capacity as bordering states, without prejudice to Egypt’s legitimate rights of control or to the exercise of her exceptional rights of inspection and of seizing contraband articles, by virtue of the provisions of the Decree of February 6, 1950, as long as these provisions remain in force.

5. As to enemy boats, a distinction must be made between warships, and commercial boats. The former are forbidden from entering and traversing the territorial waters of the Kingdom of Egypt up to a distance of three nautical miles from the Egyptian coast, and this [Page 629] by virtue of Article 2, paragraph 2 of the General Armistice Agreement signed at Rhodes on February 24, 1949. As to enemy commercial boats, they can only enter any section of the Egyptian territorial waters at their own risk. The least that can be said, without prejudice to the future attitude of the Egyptian Court of Prizes, is that they expose themselves to seizure and detention until their fate is decided by the above Court of Prizes which has always endeavored that its jurisprudence should be in conformity with the international law on this matter.

April 9, 1951.

  1. Transmitted to Washington as enclosure 1 to despatch 2446 from Cairo, April 11, p. 633.

    A copy of the original French text, not printed, forms enclosure 2 to the despatch.

    ↩
  2. The Security Council had issued its final cease-fire order on July 15, 1948. For text, see U.N. Doc. S/902 or Foreign Relations, 1948, vol. v, pt. 2, p. 1224.↩
  3. Between Israel and Egypt, signed February 24, 1949. For text, see U.N. Doc. S/1264/Corr. 1 and Add. 1.↩
  4. For information on this incident, see telegram 102, January 30, in Foreign Relations, 1950, vol. v, p. 711.↩