Dr. Mohamed Abdel-Ati, the Egyptian Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation, confirmed, on Sunday, that the negotiations of the Renaissance Dam have been stalled, and the United States has not yet made any proposal to solve the Renaissance Dam crisis.
He said during press statements. Cairo will not accept the occurrence of a water crisis in the country, and any unilateral and illegal action by Ethiopia. ”
He also added, “The second filling of the Renaissance Dam will cause a“ water shock ”to Egypt, indicating,“ We will use the water reserves in front of the High Dam to compensate for the shortage resulting from the second filling of the Renaissance Dam. ”
A negative impact
and escalating tension between Ethiopia on the one hand, and Egypt and Sudan on the other hand, with Addis Ababa announcing the date for the second filling of the dam, in a move that Khartoum considers “an imminent threat to the safety of its citizens.” “Egypt fears its negative impact on its share of the Nile’s water.
Last week, the US State Department issued a statement about the results of the visit of its Special Envoy to the Horn of Africa, Jeffrey Feltman, to Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia, and the details of the talks. He conducted it around the dam.
The US State Department said that Feltman had discussed with the leaders of Egypt and Walls He and Ethiopia condemned the concerns about the Renaissance Dam, its safety, and reconciliation between Ethiopia’s development needs and the interests of Egypt and Sudan, stressing his commitment to working with international partners to find a solution and providing political and technical support to facilitate a successful outcome for the negotiations.
Egypt calls for an agreement to be reached. Legally binding before the second filling of the GERD reservoir, lest this affect its share of water.
Threat to water resources
and dam The renaissance, whose construction began in 2011 in northwestern Ethiopia, is a source of tension between Addis Ababa on the one hand, and Khartoum and Cairo on the other hand.
Sudan and Egypt consider the dam a threat to their water resources, and in recent months the two countries have doubled warnings against Addis Ababa.
Ethiopia stresses that the dam is vital to meet the energy needs of its 110 million people. It announced in July 2020 that it had reached its annual goal of filling the dam, and the second phase of the process is scheduled to begin in July 2021.
Observers from the United States and the European Union have attended several rounds of negotiations over the past decade between The three countries, but none of them resulted in a binding agreement.
