| Subject: Egypt Can Stop Warships Crossing Suez Canal: Experts |
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Date Posted: 01:21:27 04/07/03 Mon
Egypt Can Stop Warships Crossing Suez Canal: Experts
By Abdel-Rahim Ali, IOL Cairo Staff
CAIRO, April 6 (IslamOnline.net) - A number of Egyptian legal experts signed up to a statement calling on the Egyptian government to stop U.S.-led warships from crossing the Suez Canal toward Iraq, saying that such a step accords with international conventions.
http://www.islamonline.net/english/News/2003-04/06/article15.shtml
Entitled "A Perspective On Aggression Warplanes' Sailing Through The Strategic Canal”, the statement cited the Joint Arab Defense Treaty signed by Arab countries in 1950.
The second article of the treaty calls on the countries "signed here consider a military aggression against any one of them is an aggression on all".
Egypt signed the treaty in 1950 and Iraq in 1951.
The statement mentioned that Egypt sent troops to join in the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq on the grounds of its commitment to the Joint Arab Defense Treaty.
So the country could follow up on the same principle by closing the waterway before U.S. warplanes that would attack another signatory to the treaty.
Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak said late on March that he could not stop U.S.-led warships from crossing the Canal en route to the Gulf because of international treaties.
"Crossing of ships of the Suez Canal is a right for all countries and is an international commitment that cannot be trampled with," Mubarak said in alive broadcast on the Egyptian TV, adding that Egypt could only close the 162-kilometer (101-mile) waterway when it is at war and to ships from belligerent nations.
But the statement, signed by renowned legalists as the former Constitutional Court chief and the former State Council vice-president, said Egypt also is committed by the Arab League Charter which called on all of Arab countries to help maintain regional security and abort all foreign plans meant to destabilize any one of them.
"The resolutions out of the Arab Summit carried a flat rejection to war threats to Iraq as a danger to all Arabs national security," read the statement, in reference to the get-together in the Egyptian Red Sea resort city of Sharm al-Sheikh on March 1.
"Given that Egypt signed these documents, the U.S. aggression is hereby against Iraq as well as Egypt," said the statement.
It added that Egypt already benefited from the Joint Arab Defense Treaty in wars erupted in 1956, 1967 and 1973.
Since the war opened its salvoes in March 20, thousands of demonstrators have protested across Egypt and urged the government to close the canal to the U.S.-led warships.
Egypt's top Islamic cleric slammed Saturday, April 5, the U.S.-British invasion of Iraq as an act by "terrorists", saying he gave his blessings to volunteers wishing to help the Iraqis fight against their invaders.
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