President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi said Saturday that no entity can touch or affect Egypt’s water share of the Nile river, after the failure of the last negotiations session with Sudan and Ethiopia regarding the Great Ethiopian Renascences Dam (GERD).
He made the statements during the inauguration of the largest fish farm in the Middle East, which is located in Kafr El-Sheikh governorate, according to the presidency.
The president said Egypt informed Ethiopia that it does not have any reservations on development projects, as long as they do not affect Egypt’s water share. The statements came after the last meeting between Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan was reported to have failed in reaching a consensus about the study made on the effects of the dam on water flow in downstream countries.
The Ethiopian government started establishing the GERD in April 2011 on the Blue Nile river. However, Egypt fears the dam will affect its historic Nile water share of 55 billion sqm, which it has had access to since a 1959 agreement with Sudan.
Last week, after the failure of the meeting, MPs in the Egyptian Parliament called on the Egyptian state to intervene politically and to take part in the negotiations. The Foreign Ministry announced last week that Al-Sisi will soon meet Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn to discuss the GERD.
