Egypt denounces Ethiopia over accusation that Cairo is politicizing Nile water concerns

Egypt has denounced Ethiopia over the latter’s accusation that Cairo is politicizing the row over Nile waters, saying that the accusation is an attempt to evade legal responsibility for the effects of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

The dam has been under construction since 2011 and Ethiopia began filling it in stages in 2020, causing tensions to rise with Egypt and Sudan, which are downriver of it and fear it will reduce their shares of Nile water. They demand a legally binding agreement by Ethiopia on its filling and operation.

Hamdi Loza, Egypt’s deputy foreign minister for African Affairs, said on Wednesday that Cairo’s concerns about the repercussions of the project on Egypt’s water security are real and based on documented scientific studies.

He dismissed continual Ethiopian claims that Egypt is politicizing the issue, recently repeated by the Ethiopian minister of state for foreign affairs, as an attempt to evade legal responsibility and disregard the principles of international law and good neighborliness.

In a statement from the Foreign Ministry, Loza said: “It is unfortunate that Ethiopian officials continue to express their willingness and desire to resume negotiations under the auspices of the African Union, in a new attempt to buy time and continue filling the dam without an agreement.

“The continuation of the negotiations for 10 years without results is evidence of Ethiopian intransigence.”

Recent statements by Ethiopian officials about their absolute freedom to continue filling the dam regardless of the rights of downstream countries are further evidence of a unilateral approach to the issue that goes beyond the scope of negotiation, Loza added.

Meles Alem, a spokesman for the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry, has said that the construction and operation of the dam will not cause any harm to Sudan or Egypt, and that Ethiopia continues to work to find an African solution to the concerns about the project.

Ethiopian media reports quoted the Ethiopian minister of state for foreign affairs, Misganu Arga, as saying that Addis Ababas’s position is consistent with the need to continue tripartite negotiations under the auspices of the African Union.

“Egypt’s attempt to politicize the waters of the Nile and the dam does not benefit any party,” Arga said during talks with African Union Commission Chairman Moussa Fakih. He expressed a hope that the African Union “will play a positive role in continuing the negotiations based on the reality on the ground.”

Egypt receives more than 90 percent of its fresh water supplies from the Nile, and fears any reduction caused by the dam could devastate its economy. Sudan is concerned about the safety of the dam and its effects on the water flowing through its own dams and power stations Ethiopia says the project is critical to its economic development and for power generation. As a result, the long-running, bitter dispute over the construction, filling and operation of the dam remains unresolved.

Last month, Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry reiterated Egypt’s concerns about Ethiopia’s actions relating to the operation of the dam. It could pose a great danger to his country, he said, which “suffers from unique water scarcity as the driest country in the world.”

Speaking at the opening of the 159th session of the Council of Arab foreign ministers, he added: “I do not fail to address a pivotal issue of advanced priority, which has fateful consequences for Egypt’s national security, namely the danger of unilateral Ethiopian practices on the common river basins, of which the GERD is the most prominent current manifestation.”

Shoukry again condemned Ethiopia’s continuing process of filling the dam before a binding legal agreement has been reached with its two downstream neighbors.