Cairo Accuses Addis Ababa of ‘Intransigence’ in GERD Talks

Egypt has once again held Addis Ababa responsible for the stalled talks on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which it is constructing on the Nile River.
Egyptian
Minister of Water Resources Mohamed Abdel Aty criticized on Sunday Ethiopia’s
ongoing “intransigence” on GERD.
During
the parliament’s plenary session, Abdel Aty stressed that the dam dispute
concerns the Egyptian state and all its institutions.
The
minister said the dispute has taken two courses of negotiations. The first was
mediated by the US and the World Bank in early 2020, and the second by the
African Union, which has been sponsoring talks between Cairo, Khartoum and
Addis Ababa since July 2020, despite lack of progress.
Addis
Ababa has earlier withdrawn from the US negotiations, Abdel Aty noted.
He
pointed out that his country has responded to Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla
Hamdok’s initiative and many tripartite meetings have been held. However, they
did not lead to any outcome due to Ethiopia’s intransigence on technical and
legal issues.
Abdel
Aty revealed that Addis Ababa withdrew from all the agreements reached between
the three sides, but that Egypt, along with all its institutions, remained in
the talks to resolve the crisis.
The
Egyptian minister highlighted his country’s water challenges, indicating that
Cairo is working to confront them through several means and a national
strategic plan.
“The state is making great efforts to
maximize and develop its water resources via national plans that aim to take
advantage of the available resources, rationalize their use, maximize their
returns and raise their efficiency.
It
is using modern technologies to manage the Nile waters, he explained.
It is also developing and modernizing the irrigation system in agriculture to increase produce, Abdel Aty noted.
Cairo and Khartoum stress the need to reach a binding agreement that guarantees the rights and interests of the three countries, and include a mechanism for settling disputes filling and operation of the dam.
They fear the potential negative impact of GERD on the flow of their annual share of the Nile’s 55.5 billion cubic meters of water.