Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil al-Arabi stated Sunday that his country would demand that Israel pay the price differences for the reduced gas it purchased during the Hosni Mubarak era.
“We will honor everything we signed on and we’ll demand that they uphold it too,” he was quoted as saying in an interview to the Dream TV channel.
According to the minister, clause No. 8 in the Israel-Egypt peace agreement allows the parties to appoint a joint committee to discuss settling financial disputes, “and we will demand from Israel the price differences of the gas exported to Israel during the previous regime.”
Al-Arabi noted that the Camp David Accords do not include a clause on selling gas and oil to Israel for a reduced price, and that those who interpreted it that way were “wrong” or “wanted to interpret it that way”.
Al-Arabi, who is considered hostile towards Israel, is the first official to raise the possibility that Egypt would demand that Israel pay for the gas retroactively. These comments contradict remarks made by the new oil minister, who said Egypt wanted to enter negotiations with Israel on the possibility of raising the gas prices from now on.
The Egyptian foreign minister added that former President Mubarak was a “strategic treasure” for Israel, implying that this would not be the situation from now on. He also said that Iran should not be considered an enemy state.
Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi has welcomed a proposal by his Egyptian counterpart Nabil el-Arabi that Cairo is willing to reestablish diplomatic ties with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
“Good relationship between the two countries will definitely help stability, security, and development in the region,” Salehi noted.
Salehi again praised the Egyptian revolution and said, “The Egyptian people by taking steps toward realizing their just demands opened a new chapter in the history of the country and again I congratulate them on this victory.”
My goodness, I wonder what the Israeli’s will do now? How sad when the government of a country jeopardizes the whole population for the greed of the few. Talk about who’s drinking the koolaid, seems that the hardliners are convinced that they really are the chosen ones. Reality check, they bleed just like every other Human being, so they stand alone, yet are willing to take the entire population down when they go.
Just to put a number to the gas “deal” Israel got under the Mubarak regime:
At the time when the contract was signed the world price for gas was almost 10 US$ (in words: ten) per 1 Mio BTU – Israel got it for 1.25 US$ (in words: one point twenty five) per 1 Mio BTU!! Ain’t that nice???
The agreement was not approved by the parliament although it’s required by the constitution that ALL agreements with respect to natural resources must get parliamentary approval.
Now can anyone explain to the Egyptian people – of which some 40% live below the poverty line – why they must subsidize the energy consumption of any other state but especially of Israel? The very same Israel which has still to pay for the clean-up of the mess it left in Sinai and the Red Sea from the oil production … and for all I know that issue is still outstanding too = the sale of the oil it illegally produced from the Egyptian oil fields during the occupation of the Sinai.
Maybe now we see some clean-up after all? Although looking at “The Return of Pan-Arabism Amidst Upheaval: An end to Balkanization?” http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23542 one cannot help but doubt what’s really in the making in the Middle East.