President Hosni Mubarak on Tuesday met with Kenyan Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka in Cairo to discuss improving relations between the two countries and strengthening joint African initiatives.
The meeting comes amid escalating tensions between Egypt and upstream Nile riparian nations. In May, Kenya joined an agreement earlier signed by Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania to redistribute Nile flow.
Egypt and Sudan, the two downstream countries, rejected the new agreement and announced they would abide by two older agreements that deliver them the largest shares of Nile water.
Kenya, however, declared it would not build any dams that had the potential to undermine Egypt’s Nile quota.
Egypt receives the lion's share of Nile water according to an agreement signed with Sudan in 1959. Egypt says the two agreements, signed in 1929–when Egypt was still under British occupation–and in 1959, stipulate that the approval of all Nile basin countries is required for any new water utilization project.
East African countries–particularly Kenya and Uganda–have been calling for the 1929 agreement to be abandoned, saying it does not take into account the needs of the upstream countries.
