Alwaght- Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi has escalated tensions with Ethiopia after saying Saturday he will not allow the country's water resources to be reduced by the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam project.
El-Sisi said during an inauguration ceremony of development projects in Kafr al-Sheikh Governorate that, “The waters of Egypt are not a subject for talk, and I assure you, no one can touch Egypt’s water.”
El-Sisi was referring to the issue of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which Ethiopia has been constructing since 2011 over the Blue Nile, one of Egypt’s major sources of freshwater. The dam is expected to be completed this year.
The negotiations of the dam project’s tripartite commission, made up of Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia, in Cairo last week concluded without reportedly making any tangible progress.
Egypt’s share of Nile water sits at 55.5 billion cubic meters, while Sudan’s quota is 18.5 billion cubic meters. This is in accordance with an agreement signed between the two downstream countries in 1959; an agreement Ethiopia does not recognize.
The dam is expected to reduce Egypt’s share of Nile waters, further limiting the country’s already scarce water resources.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn confirmed his county’s determination to complete the Renaissance Dam on schedule during a recent visit to Qatar.
Egypt and Ethiopia continue to oppose one another over the allocation of the waters of the Nile River basin, despite a succession of provisional multilateral agreements. Officials in Cairo insist that Egypt be guaranteed its “historic rights” to two-thirds of the river’s flow, while their counterparts in Addis Ababa demand an “equitable” distribution of water among all of the riparian countries.
Additionally, Egypt's neighbor and fellow Arab League member, Sudan is backing Ethiopia thus moving the conflict to new levels. Other Nile Basin countries namely South Sudan, Kenya, Uganda and Eritrea also insist on equal shares of Nile waters.
