Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said during an inauguration ceremony of development projects in Kafr al-Sheikh Governorate Saturday, that Egypt will not allow its water resources to be reduced by the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam project.
“The waters of Egypt is not a subject for talk, and I assure you, no one can touch Egypt’s water,” Sisi said.
Sisi was addressing the issue of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which Ethiopia has been constructing since 2011 over the Blue Nile, one of Egypt’s major sources of freshwater. The dam is expected to be completed this year.
The negotiations of the dam project’s tripartite commission, made up of Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia, in Cairo last week concluded without reportedly making any tangible progress.
Egypt’s share of Nile water sits at 55.5 billion cubic meters, while Sudan’s quota is 18.5 billion cubic meters. This is in accordance with an agreement signed between the two downstream countries in 1959; an agreement Ethiopia does not recognize.
The dam is expected to reduce Egypt’s share of Nile waters, further limiting the country’s already scarce water resources.
Edited translation from al-Masry al-Youm
