Just outside Sharm el Sheikh's international airport stands a mural of smiling world leaders commemorating the “Peacemakers' Summit”, a 1996 conference aimed at resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict, while further down the “Peace Highway” a statue of President Hosni Mubarak welcomes visitors to his “City of Peace”.

This resort town at the southern tip of the Sinai peninsula is not only the capital of Egypt's “Red Sea Riviera”, a big contributor to the tourism receipts that are the country's main source of foreign exchange, but it has also become the country's diplomatic capital, the president's summer home and his favourite venue for meetings with other world leaders.