Egypt’s Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli on Wednesday said Ethiopia is violating previous agreements related to the Nile water, reported Xinhuanet.
Egypt gets 90 percent of its fresh water supply from Nile, and fears the dam, which is being built in Ethiopia close to the border with Sudan, will restrict the water supplies.
While addressing a general session of the House of Representatives, Madbouli said that Ethiopia took a unilateral decision in 2011 to build the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), taking advantage of the turmoil in Egypt at that time.
He said the Egypt government had put forward proposals to solve the difference in the latest round of negotiations held in Khartoum, but Ethiopia rejected all the proposals.
The prime minister said the negotiations have reached a deadlock as Ethiopia is not up for the negotiation deal.
“It is quite clear that Ethiopia wants to impose the status quo on Egypt, and so we find that it has become very difficult to reach agreements with Ethiopia,” Mr. Madbouli said.
However, the prime minister added that the dialogue is still open for reaching a solution to the issue in a way that will not harm the Egyptian rights to the Nile water. He said Egypt has the rights based on article 10 of the Declaration of Principles to seek a mediator that can resolve differences in a scientific way.
At the same parliamentary session, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said Egypt has called on the World Bank to act as a mediator to settling the differences. He said the Nile water and the Ethiopian dam issue is on top of the Egyptian government’s priorities list.
“The Egyptian water security is part and parcel of the Egyptian national security,” the foreign minister added.
He said Egypt will not allow Ethiopia to impose the status quo and the government has the power to protect its rights to the Nile water as well as resort to international law in this respect.
