The Sudanese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Maryam Al-Sadiq Al-Mahdi, affirmed that the essence of her country’s demand in the negotiations of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is to reach a binding and legal agreement regarding the filling and operation of the dam, and to a solution that satisfies Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia.
This came during her meeting with the Sudanese community in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, as part of an African tour that the minister is taking to explain her country’s position on the Renaissance Dam negotiations.
Egypt had announced its rejection of the statements of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed related to building a number of dams in different regions of Ethiopia, stressing that these water projects should be established after coordination and consultation with neighboring countries.
Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed Hafez said that the Ethiopian Prime Minister’s statement in this regard reveals Addis Ababa’s bad faith, and its treatment of international rivers as if they were internal rivers under its sovereignty.
Hafez explained that Egypt has always recognized the right of all Nile Basin countries to establish water projects and exploit the resources of the Nile River in order to achieve development for their brotherly peoples.
And the Ethiopian Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, had previously announced that his country would build more than 100 small and medium dams in different states in the country in the next fiscal year.
Abiy Ahmed said that his country intends to build more than 100 small and medium-sized dams in different regions by the next Ethiopian budget year, which will have an effective role in agricultural production in order to ensure food security.