The Sinai Peninsula is Egyptian land and has never been, at any point in time a topic for discussion between any Egyptian and foreign officials, said Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Ahmed Abu Zeid.
Abu Zeid denied circulating rumors about an agreement between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump to lodge Palestinians in Sinai.
In a phone call on DMC channel Thursday evening, he added that Egypt upholds the two-state solution for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, a solution which also enjoys international consensus.
Abu Zeid said direct negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis would lead to a settlement for the dispute and achieve the Palestinian people's aspirations for a state of their own.
The Times of Israel newspaper reported that Ayoub Kara, an Israeli Druze politician and a minister in the prime minister's office, wrote on his Twitter account on Tuesday, the day before Netanyahu and Trump's meeting, that they will discuss a plan to establish a Palestinian state in Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula, excluding the West Bank.
“Trump and Netanyahu will adopt the plan of Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi: a Palestinian state in Gaza and Sinai, instead of Judea and Samaria,” Kara wrote on Twitter. “This is how we will pave a path to peace, including with the Sunni coalition."
However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brushed off those alleged claims by one of his ministers that he would discuss an Egyptian proposal to form a Palestinian state in Sinai during the meeting he held with US President Donald Trump on Wednesday.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
