ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

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Tirana () is an island of 80 square kilometers in the Red Sea. Located in the strait of the same name, representing the neck of the Gulf of Aqaba northeast of the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh. It belongs to Saudi Arabia.

Territorial ownership
The island was formerly owned by Egypt. On April 9, 2016, an agreement was signed on the demarcation of the maritime border between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, under which the islands of Tiran and Sanafir ceded to Riyadh. Egyptian officials said the islands belong to Saudi Arabia and have been under Egyptian protection since 1950. This angered the Egyptians and provoked protests: opponents of the transfer believe that the islands of Tiran and Sanafir have been part of Egypt since 1906, when an agreement was concluded between the Ottoman Empire and Egypt to transfer the Sinai Peninsula to the latter. On June 24, 2017, the agreement entered into force. On July 16, 2022, the United States and Saudi Arabia agreed to withdraw their military contingents from the island. In turn, Saudi Arabia agreed to increase its production capacity from 12 to 13 million barrels per day by 2027.

Regional importance
Tirana is home to a small military base (Observation Post 3-11) of international observers MFO (Multinational Force and Observers), which monitors Egypt and Israel's compliance with the peace treaty. The landing of strangers on the island is prohibited. The observer base on Tirana is located in the western part of the island on top of a cliff 250 meters high above a beach mined since previous conflicts. It is supplied twice a week by helicopters from Sharm el-Sheikh. The island itself, apart from the UN military base, is uninhabited.

Attractions
In the strait between Sinai and the island are four coral reefs: Jackson, Gordon, Woodhouse and Thomas. The reefs are named after the English officers who once described these places. All but Gordon Reef are sheer walls lined with magnificent corals. On the southernmost of the four reefs of the strait, Gordon Reef, since September 1981 lies, leaning to the left side, the Panamanian merchant ship Lullia. In December 1981, another merchant ship, the Cyprus Lara, landed on the northern reef of Jackson. In 1996, he began to cut for scrap metal, but never completed this work. As a result, over the reef and to this day rises part of its frame with the nose section.

The wildlife of the coral reefs around the island is very popular with tourists. The island of Tiran was previously regularly visited by excursions, the beauty of its underwater world is considered one of the best in the Red Sea. Some of the island's beaches are mined.

From 1983 to 2017, Tiran Island was part of the Egyptian Ras Mohammed National Park. On it there are nesting grounds of seven species of rather rare waterfowl, and on the northern shore of its southern part there is an extensive mangrove. Ornithologists express