On April 24, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo. During their meeting, both leaders discussed the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam dispute, which has pitted Egypt and Sudan against Ethiopia.
Mohammed bin Zayed’s discussions with Sisi on the dam issue reflect the UAE’s growing interest in ameliorating this dispute. On March 26, the UAE formally offered to mediate the dam dispute and on March 31, the UAE invited the foreign ministers of Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt for talks on the dam in Abu Dhabi. The UAE wishes to facilitate a deal that would allow Ethiopia to fill the dam and simultaneously ensure that the downstream countries, Egypt and Sudan, maintain sufficient access to Nile River water.
The UAE’s offer to mediate between conflicting parties in the dam dispute reflects its commitment to Red Sea security and a growing reliance on crisis diplomacy as a tool of power projection. Albadr Alshateri, a former professor at Abu Dhabi’s National Defense College, told Al-Monitor that the UAE’s diplomatic efforts are an “investment towards the stability and security of the Red Sea.” Alshateri singled out the UAE’s mediation in the conflict between Sudan and Ethiopia, and prior arbitration between Ethiopia and Eritrea, as especially consequential diplomatic overtures in this region. Nevertheless, ending the dam dispute, which has been accompanied by Sisi’s repeated warnings of war with Ethiopia, would aid the cause of the Saudi Arabia-led Red Sea security coalition that was inaugurated in January 2020.
As the UAE officially ended its involvement in the Yemen conflict in October 2019 and its military intervention on Khalifa Haftar’s behalf in Libya failed, Abu Dhabi has relied increasingly on crisis diplomacy to expand its international influence. In a recent speech at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, UAE Ambassador to the United States Yousef al-Otaiba said, “We try to be helpful where we have influence with two different countries.” Otaiba singled out the UAE’s dialogue facilitation between India and Pakistan over Kashmir as its most significant diplomatic foray, but Abu Dhabi’s arbitration offer in the dam dispute follows a similar pattern of conduct.
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