The Blue Nile River as it passes through the great Ethiopian Renaissance dam near Guba, Ethiopia in 2019.
Photographer: Eduardo Soteras / AFP / Getty Images
Photographer: Eduardo Soteras / AFP / Getty Images
Egypt noted a growing impatience with Ethiopia, as recent talks on a controversial dam on the main tributary of the Nile River ended without progress.
Describing Ethiopia’s rejection of a Sudanese proposal by additional international mediators as proof of the desire to “postpone,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said his country “and its institutions have different scenarios for to deal with this situation to protect its waters and its people. “
“We will face it with everything we have: first, politically,” Shoukry said on Tuesday in an interview with the Pan-Arab television channel Al-Arabiya in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the site of several days of African Union-backed talks. In separate comments from Egyptian broadcaster ExtraNews, he said the options include turning to international bodies such as the UN Security Council.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi warned last week that any attempt to take “a drop of water from Egypt” would have a destabilizing effect on the entire region. It was one of his strongest statements in the long-running dispute over the great takeover of the Ethiopian Renaissance.
Ethiopia is developing a 6,000-megawatt power plant at the GERD and a second filling of the reservoir is expected to begin when the next rainy season begins in July. Egypt, which depends on the Nile for most of its freshwater needs, opposes any development says will they impact on the flow downstream of the river, a position that echoes the common neighbor Sudan.
Filling the reservoir
Egypt and Sudan have repeatedly condemned any unilateral action by Ethiopia to create the planned 74 billion cubic meter reservoir and want the three nations to agree on steps to fill and operate first.
Ethiopia, which sees the dam as vital to its economic development, has said there is no cause for concern. He has repeatedly rejected a recent Egyptian-Sudanese proposal to add the UN, the US and the European Union as mediators.
The Sudanese negotiating team on Tuesday blamed the lack of progress on “Ethiopian intransigence.” The Horn of Africa country’s stance “requires Sudan to consider all possible options to protect its security and its citizens, as guaranteed by international law,” it said in a statement.
There were no immediate comments from Ethiopia. Egyptian officials had previously described the meetings in the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, as the “last chance” to reactivate the African Union-led negotiations before any meeting.
Sudan’s and Egypt’s positions on the dam have converged in recent years, as relations have been strengthened following the overthrow of the army by Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir in 2019. The two countries’ air forces conducted joint exercises. last week in Sudan.
– With the assistance of Tarek El-Tablawy and Mohammed Alamin
(Updates with comments from the Sudanese negotiating team in the eighth paragraph.)