CAIRO — After water ministers from Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia failed to reach a technical agreement to reduce the risk posed by the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and negotiations were upgraded to the political level between foreign affairs ministers, Egyptian Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Hossam Moghazi told Al-Monitor, “Cairo is totally committed politically to building trust with Ethiopia. However, it will not relinquish any of its historical and vested rights to the Nile waters.”
Speaking to Al-Monitor in Cairo following his return from a three-country meeting held in Khartoum earlier this month, Moghazi spoke about the government’s opinion on the efficiency of the negotiations with Ethiopia following the calls that opposed the continuation of negotiations, and considered them a waste of time. Meanwhile, construction is ongoing at the dam site, with Addis Ababa not waiting for the outcomes of the negotiations and technical studies that would define how to reduce the risks for Egypt.
The technical negotiations between Cairo, Addis Ababa and Khartoum started in August 2014, after President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi assumed office and signed with Ethiopia a cooperation memorandum on the management of the Nile waters, which is known as the Malabo declaration, in June 2014. Although the negotiations continued for more than a year and a half, a technical agreement was not reached on how to conduct studies that would define how to deal with the dam’s negative effects.
The text of the interview follows:
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