AbdelHalim H. AbdAllah
Egypt seeking agreement to ensure Ethiopia’s developmental needs, interests of Sudan, and Egypt’s water security, says ministry
(Daily News Egypt) Egypt is seeking to negotiate a “win-win” scenario with Ethiopia and Sudan over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) that would protect the Ethiopia’s developmental needs, Sudan’s interests, and Egypt’s water security, according to a Foreign Ministry document released Tuesday.
The document, outlining the foreign ministry’s official stance towards the dam, detailed the Egyptian narrative of the GERD negotiations and listed the arguments of the Egyptian side.
The Egyptian side said Ethiopia continuing the construction process at the dam site “violates all the well-known international legal principles regarding projects and/or constructions on international rivers”, adding that it has broken a number of international agreements.
Among the agreements mentioned in the document was the 1902 agreement between Ethiopia and the British Government, where the Ethiopian side vowed not to construct or allow the construction of any work across the Blue Nile, Lake Tana, or the Sobat, which would arrest the flow of their waters except in agreement with “His Britannic Majesty’s Government and the Government of Sudan” Read full story on Daily News Egypt…
Most Egyptian politicians have no purpose other than creating delay in the construction of GERD. This “only” intention of delay has been clearly demonstrated over the last 10 years of the Nile Basin Initiative. I love to see real negotiations but that has not been the case on the side of Egypt.
I have been listening that Egyptian politicians and journalists saying that Ethiopia is violating agreements. Which agreement are they citing? Ethiopia has never violate the 1902 agreement and will never. The flow of the river will never stop and we Ethiopians have no intention of doing that. Ethiopia never signed the rest of agreements. Those were signed between Egypt and Sudan, at times including their colonial powers. No country (or any other entity)has the obligation to respect any agreement to which it is not part of.