uninhabited islands that sit on the southern entry to the Gulf of Aqaba were originally given to Egypt in 1950 by Saudi Arabia, in order to protect them from Israel. Later, the islands played an important role in setting off the 1967 Six-Day War when Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli ships, preventing Israeli access to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean.

United Nations peacekeepers maintain a presence on Tiran Island as part of the 1979 Israel-Egypt peace treaty. Under the treaty’s terms, Israel gave its approval for the Egyptian-Saudi agreement as long as the Saudis maintained the treaty’s clauses pertaining to Israeli shipping through the Straits of Tiran.

According to Joshua Teitelbaum, a senior research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies and a professor ofof their own. The Good Friday Agreement came about after months of painstaking diplomacy between London, Belfast and Dublin. Brexit will be no different, writes Dr Melanie Sully.

The issue of how to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland and keep the 1998 peace deal on track has become the biggest challenge to the progress of Brexit talks. Stephen Farry explains how it can be overcome.

Spain will not raise any objections to a statement at the European Council summit tomorrow (29 April) recognising that a united Ireland would be an EU member state, according to an EU diplomatic source with knowledge of Spain's position in the Brexit negotiations.

The 48% of British people who voted remain in the EU referendum last year need to be taken into