CAIRO — Despite public demands for the development process in the Sinai Peninsula to be accelerated and for the land reclamation plan to be completed to encourage Egyptians to stay and live in Sinai, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has ordered the government to stop pumping water into al-Salam Canal. Sisi also ordered that the project be delisted from the first step of a plan to reclaim 4 million acres of land, refusing to allow a project that would supply the canal with polluted wastewater.

Al-Salam Canal was a project adopted by in 1989 by then-President Hosni Mubarak; it aimed to supply Sinai with water and reclaim 620,000 acres of land located to the west and east of the Suez Canal. It also had the aim of establishing towns, with full services, which would host 3 million Egyptians. These services include hospitals, schools and markets in addition to electricity, transport, water and arable land.

But Sisi was adamant that the project not rely on polluted wastewater, saying he would not allow for Sinai’s economic development to come about like that. Sisi’s decision came amid the insistence of Sinai tribes on activating two vital projects, a big industrial zone and al-Salam Canal, as a means of undercutting terrorism. Partisan political powers in Egypt have agreed that the solution to terrorism should not be displacing residents, evacuating the border area or imposing curfews, but rather construction and development.

Ibrahim Mehleb's Cabinet took major steps to resolve the crisis. Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Houssam al-Moghazi said in a media statement: “After the presidential order to not pump polluted water into Sinai lands was issued, it was decided to set up two treatment plants for the water supplied to the canal, and postpone the inclusion of Sinai lands in the 1 million acres reclamation project until the presidential program’s second phase. [The canal project will be postponed] until the two plants are set up, with a cost reaching 900 million Egyptian pounds [$125 million].”