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Egypt: We Flooded Tunnels to Cut Gaza Arms Flow

(Reuters) Paul Taylor and Yasmine Saleh - Egypt will not tolerate a two-way flow of smuggled arms with Gaza that is destabilizing its Sinai peninsula, said Essam Haddad, national security adviser to President Mohamed Morsi, explaining why Egyptian forces flooded sub-border tunnels last week. "We don't want to see these tunnels used for illegal ways of smuggling either people or weapons that can really harm Egyptian security." He said that under a deal brokered by Cairo to end fighting in November between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, Israel and Egypt have both eased border controls to allow in construction materials. "Now we can say that the borders are open to a good extent," Haddad said. "And on the other side, we would not like to see arms smuggled through these tunnels either in or out, because we are now seeing in Sinai, and we have captured actually across Egypt, heavy arms that could be used in a very dangerous way." Haddad made clear that President Morsi would scrupulously respect Egypt's 1979 peace treaty with Israel, and that daily cooperation with Israel continued as normal, even though there were no contacts at a presidential level.
2013-02-20 00:00:00
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