Ethiopia still believes Renaissance Dam talks will yield results

Ethiopia still believes tripartite talks on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will help resolve the conflict on the project, the country’s new envoy to Egypt Markos Tekle said yesterday.

In an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, the ambassador said: “We still believe in the negotiation, and we adhere to our consistent position in this regard,” adding that Ethiopia insisted to move on with the talks without a direct mediator.

“We assume that the African Union (AU) will continue to manage the negotiation sessions. But we prefer that the AU only manage the sessions, without assuming a mediating role,” he stressed.

Ethiopia is building a $5 billion dam near the border with Sudan it says will provide the country with much-needed electricity and economic regeneration. Egypt believes it will restrict its access to Nile waters.

Egypt is almost entirely dependent on Nile water, receiving around 55.5 million cubic metres a year from the river, and believes that filling the dam will affect the water it needs for drinking, agriculture and electricity.

Egypt: PM says water is ‘life and death’ issue

Cairo wants Ethiopia to guarantee Egypt will receive 40 billion cubic metres or more of water from the Nile. Ethiopian Irrigation Minister Seleshi Bekele said Egypt has abandoned this demand, but Egypt insists it hasn’t and issued a statement to this effect.

There is also an unresolved issue over how fast the dam will be filled, with Egypt fearing if it is filled too quickly, it could affect the electricity generated by the Aswan High Dam.

About the Ethiopian decision to start filling the dam before reaching an agreement, the ambassador said: “Yes, we have embarked on that, but we still hope to reach an agreement through negotiations.”

Explaining the situation, he said: “Due to the outbreak of the coronavirus… and other developments, the negotiations did not proceed at the pace we had hoped for. Last summer, the rainy season was very abundant and the first phase of building the dam was completed, and therefore we did not find anything wrong with filling the dam.”