The initial filling of Ethiopia’s controversial Grand Renaissance Dam will not take place without prior consensus from Egypt and Sudan, an official at Egypt’s Irrigation Ministry has stressed.
Alaa Yassin, an adviser to Egypt’s Irrigation and Water Resources Ministry, was citing an agreement of principles signed by the three states in Adis Ababa last March.
The agreement had set terms of common cooperation for an equitable distribution of Nile water and the means to benefit from the Ethiopian dam, which has been a source of tension between the downstream countries, Egypt and Sudan, and Ethiopia over the past five years.
On Tuesday, Yassin said experts at the tripartite committee handling the Ethiopian dam are in daily meetings to prepare for the Dutch and French engineering consultants, who are expected to carry out technical studies on the dam’s construction within 12 months.
Egypt fears the dam could affect its historical Nile water share of 55 billion square meters, which it enjoys based on a 1959 agreement with Sudan, while Ethiopia has been reassuring Cairo on the matter.
Observers have viewed the March agreement, which seeks to ensure no harm is caused to any country’s water supply, as an official Egyptian-Sudanese recognition of the Ethiopian dam.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
