Egypt is angry because it says Ethiopia has resumed filling GERD | Egypt News

Egypt stated that due to dams built on the main tributaries of the Nile, tensions continue to rise, and unilateral actions violate international laws and norms.

Egypt says it has received formal notice from Ethiopia that it has begun the next phase of filling a controversial dam on the main tributary of the Nile, which has increased tensions days before the upcoming UN Security Council meeting on the issue. .

In a statement late on Monday, the Egyptian Ministry of Irrigation stated that it “resolutely rejects this unilateral measure” and stated that the move “violates the international laws and regulations governing projects constructed on the shared basin of international rivers”.

After the completion of the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), it will become the largest hydropower project in Africa, and is the source of the nearly decade-long diplomatic deadlock between Ethiopia and the downstream countries Egypt and Sudan.

Addis Ababa said the project is critical to development, but the governments of Cairo and Khartoum are worried that it will restrict water supply to their citizens.

Mohamed Ghanim, a spokesperson for the Egyptian Ministry of Irrigation, told a local TV channel that the amount of water will depend on Ethiopia’s seasonal rainfall.

“We don’t see any impact on the Nile now. We still have a month or a month and a half,” he said.

Egypt and Sudan have been pushing Ethiopia to sign a binding agreement on the filling and operation of the dam, and in recent weeks have been urging the UN Security Council to deal with the matter.

A diplomatic source told AFP that Tunisia, on behalf of Egypt and Sudan, requested a meeting on Thursday. But the French ambassador to the United Nations said last week that the Security Council itself could do nothing but unite the two sides.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri stated in a note to the United Nations that the negotiations were deadlocked and accused Ethiopia of adopting an “uncompromising policy that undermined our collective efforts to reach an agreement.”

The Ethiopian government has previously announced that, regardless of whether an agreement is reached, the second phase of landfill will be carried out in July.

The Nile River is about 6,000 kilometers (3,700 miles) long, one of the longest rivers in the world, and an important source of hydropower for dozens of countries in East Africa.

Egypt, where almost all irrigation and drinking water depend on the Nile River, sees dams as an existential threat.

Egyptian President Abdul Fatah Al-Sisi warned Ethiopia earlier this year that his government will not tolerate any move that would reduce Egypt’s share of the Nile’s water resources.

He said that if Egypt’s share is “touched”, “all options are open” and urged Addis Ababa to cooperate with Cairo and Khartoum to avoid any conflict.

Sudan hopes that the project can control annual floods, but fears that if there is no agreement on Ethiopia’s actions, its dam will be damaged.

Construction of the 145-meter (475-foot) giant dam started in 2011 and has a capacity of 74 billion cubic meters.

Filling began last year, and Ethiopia announced in July 2020 that it had reached the target of 4.9 billion cubic meters—enough to test the first two turbines of the dam, which is an important milestone in actual energy production.

This year’s goal is to seize another 13.5 billion cubic meters.

Egypt and Sudan hope to reach a tripartite agreement on the operation of the dam before starting to store water.

But Ethiopia stated that this is a natural part of the construction, so it is impossible to postpone it.

Last year, Sudan stated that this process led to water shortages, including Khartoum, and Ethiopia disputed this claim.

Sudan’s Minister of Water Resources Yasser Abbas warned in April that if Ethiopia continues with the second phase of water injection, his country “will file a lawsuit against the Italian company that built the dam and the Ethiopian government”.

He said these lawsuits will highlight that the “dam’s environmental and social impacts and dangers” have not been fully considered.