Alaa Al-Zawahiri, a member of Egypt’s negotiating committee regarding the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), said that the dispute on the dam will not be resolved within a year or even five, as this type of issue requires much time and effort.
His remarks came during a seminar titled ‘The Eastern Nile and the Renaissance Dam’, which was held on Sunday. He explained that the difference between Egypt and Ethiopia is that Cairo is one of the largest countries in the world in managing water resources despite how scarce water is, while Ethiopia is saturated with resources, but is not good with its financial resources.
Al-Zawahiri said that the negotiating committee has conducted more than 300 meetings with more than 50 countries.
He pointed out that the negotiating team did not discuss Egypt’s water share only but the dispute surrounding the GERD as a whole, which is an issue separate from Egypt’s water share.
He also said that “Ethiopia is seeking to mobilise all the Nile Basin’s countries to get involved in the dispute, even though no water flows southwards from Ethiopia or vice versa, and this was one of the points under discussion during the negotiations.”
Furthermore, he noted that any project that takes place within the Nile Basin or the White Nile Basin in Ethiopia will affect only Egypt and Sudan.
