Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry on Friday submitted a letter to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), to register his country’s categorical rejection of Ethiopia’s unilateral step of filling the controversial Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) without an agreement, reported The Daily News Egypt.
“Egypt completely rejects Ethiopia’s continuation of filling the GERD unilaterally without reaching an agreement with Egypt and Sudan,” said Egypt’s Foreign Minister Shoukry in the letter addressed to the UNSC.
The minister noted that Egypt continues to adhere to the need to reach a legally binding agreement on the filling and operation of the GERD that meets the common interests of all the three countries. But, he said Cairo will not tolerate any prejudice to its rights, water security or any threat to the capabilities of its people.
He made an appeal to the UNSC to ensure the implementation of its presidential statement which obligates the three countries to negotiate in order to reach an agreement on the dam at the earliest possible opportunity.
The development comes after Egypt’s Foreign Affairs Ministry announced that the country had received a message from the Ethiopian side on July 26 that Ethiopia is continuing to fill the reservoir of the dam during the current flood season.
The negotiations talks on the Nile dam held by Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia have been suspended since April 2021, following years of talks without yielding results.
To progress on the talks, Sudan also proposed changing the negotiation methods by expanding the African mediation umbrella to include the United Nations, the European Union and the United States.
Notably, Egypt and Sudan, both downstream Nile Basin countries, are concerned that the dam might affect their share of the water resources. Ethiopia, which started building the GERD in 2011, expects to produce more than 6,000 megawatts of electricity from the dam.
