(CNN) -- Egypt has agreed to allow two Iranian warships to cross through the Suez Canal in a move that puts the country's new military regime in a prickly position with its Israeli neighbor.
The post-Hosni Mubarak caretaker government gave the green light to the Iranian warships Friday, state media reported. They are expected to be the first Iranian warships to sail through the Suez since the Islamic republic's 1979 revolution. The canal is an internal body of water, and as such, Egypt has sovereignty over it.
But Egypt also is bound by the 1976 Camp David Accords, which guaranteed the right of free passage by ships belonging to Israel and all other nations on the basis of the Constantinople Convention of 1888. Before that, Egypt did not allow Israeli ships to sail through the canal. Last week, Egypt's military government said it would honor all its international treaties. That would include Camp David. "This is awkward -- at a minimum," said David Schenker, director of the Program on Arab Politics at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Schenker said the Iranians had asked for a frigate -- the Alvand -- and a military supply ship -- the Kharg -- to cross into the Mediterranean.
Both are armed with missiles, he said. Their passage would create more uncertainty in the region. "It's destabilizing. It raises tension, particularly in this time of transition in Egypt," Schenker said. "This is typical of Syrian-Iranian opportunism." Egypt's decision, analysts said, could show the direction that the military caretakers intend to take the Arab world's most populous nation. "It does raise an unwelcome political issue that has to be resolved," said Cmdr. James Kraska of the U.S. Naval War College in Rhode Island. Iran said earlier that the flotilla was on a yearlong intelligence-gathering and training mission to prepare young cadets to defend Iran's cargo ships and oil tankers, according to the semiofficial Fars News Agency.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman said Israel's allies should pay close attention to the situation. "We expect the international community to act speedily with determination against the Iranian provocations, designed to deteriorate the situation in the area, and put the Iranians in their place," he said. The Israeli Defense Ministry said Israel was monitoring the movement of the Iranian ships and alerted its allies. At the U.S. State Department, spokesman P.J. Crowley said Wednesday the United States is also watching the situation.
Reports of the Iranian passage also sent jitters through the global market, and oil prices spiked for a time Wednesday. The Suez Canal is a key waterway for international trade, allowing ships to navigate between Europe and Asia without having to go all the way around the vast African continent. Millions of barrels of oil move through the Suez every day on the way to Europe and North America.