AKIPRESS.COM - Egypt's president on Wednesday sought to defuse a storm stirred up by his government's declared intention to hand over control of two strategic Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia, arguing that he did not surrender Egyptian territory, ABC News reported.

President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi also reiterated Cairo's position that Egyptian security forces had nothing to do with the torture and killing of an Italian doctoral student abducted in Cairo, an incident that has poisoned ties with Italy. Rome recalled its ambassador to Cairo in protest of what it called a lack of cooperation by Egyptian authorities in the investigation.

Egypt's government maintains that the islands of Tiran and Sanafir at the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba belong to Saudi Arabia, which asked Egypt in 1950 to protect them from Israel. Israel captured the islands in the 1967 Middle East war, but handed them back to Egypt under their 1979 peace treaty.

"We did not surrender our rights, but we restored the rights of others," el-Sissi said in comments broadcast live. "Egypt did not relinquish even a grain of sand."

"All the data and documents say nothing except that this particular right is theirs. Please let us not talk about this subject again," he added. "There is a parliament that you elected which will debate the accord. It will either ratify or reject it."

El-Sissi went on to complain over what he termed as the Egyptians' chronic distrust of their leaders, saying it was pushing the country to "national suicide."

"You don't believe that there is a single patriotic man in the foreign ministry, the army or the intelligence agency? They are all bad people who are ready to sell off their country?" he said in a rhetorical question.