Al-Nour, a radical Islamist party which came in second in the recent parliamentary elections, announced its official stance on the peace treaty with Israel on Saturday. The movement said it views with great severity a situation where Egypt unilaterally violates the international agreement, even though it was signed by a dictatorship.
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According to the Israeli officials, the political arm of the Salafi movement intends "to raise the low price that Israel pays Egypt for gas, and change the way Egyptian troops are deployed to the Sinai Peninsula."
'Egypt won't radically reform ties with the West' (Photo: AFP)
As per the treaty, Egypt is allowed to station a limited number of police officers in Sinai. During the uprising against former President Hosni Mubarak ,Israel permitted fortified security forces deployment in the region.
"It is quite possible that the announcement regarding the peace treaty was just lip service, and we might have to find a solution that pleases them, but in effect it won't be anything substantial," one source said. "The statement won't necessarily bring to dramatic changes."
Jerusalem estimates that due to Egypt's dependence on funding from the US and other international sources, the new government won't radically reform its ties with the West. The US has stressed that Egypt's defiance of the treaty with Israel will severely damage the relations between Washington and Cairo.