Ethiopia’s Minister of Water and Energy, Alemayehu Tegenu, told Reuters on Monday that Egypt had no prior knowledge of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance dam. Barry Malone reported:
“No. They found out from the media,” Alemayehu Tegenu told Reuters in an interview on Monday when asked if Ethiopia had officially informed Egypt it was building its first dam on the Nile — something Egypt has always opposed.
Alemayehu Tegenu also said that he ‘have not received any official objection from the Egyptian side,’ to date and Ethiopia would not agree to an Egyptian request to see plans for the dam unless Egypt joins the Nile Basin Cooperative Framework Agreement.
[Speaking of Barry Malon’s report, I wonder why he chose to present Egypt’s claim to exclusively use Nile as if it is legally valid. Somebody should tell him there is nothing to be ‘re-negotiated’ – at least, as far as Ethiopia is concerned]
Many Egyptian media outlets has already translated and published Reuters’s news. A number of them under a heading: ‘Egypt will be isolated if it objects the dam’.
Incidentally, this was one of those rare days where the Egyptian online media had relatively nice words to say about the issue.
Egypt might cooperate on the new dam: Ambassador Reda Baybars, who is Nile Basin Coordinator at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Egypt, expressed ‘Egypt’s readiness to meet with officials from Ethiopia and Sudan to study the possibility of participating in the establishment of the dam,’ according to the news posted by akhbarak.net on Monday. That is, he added, on pre-condition that ‘there must be enough information on the dam to make sure it will not harm the share of Egypt and Sudan.’
The problem is the way they define ‘harm’, however.
The same news items quoted Assistant Foreign Minister for African Affairs, Mona Omar, saying that Egypt would be willing to ‘participate if it is proved that there would be no harm by the establishment of this dam to Egypt’s share’ and, added that, ‘Egypt does not worry about the dams, but their impact on reducing the water coming to Egypt .’
The phrase ‘Egypt’s share’ is a reference to nothing but to their outrages claim of 90% of the Nile.
Yet, taken at face value, it is good they chose to tone down their usual rhetoric that ‘Nile is Egypt’s life and Ethiopia can live without it’.
The officials also said that an Egyptian delegation headed by Prime Minister Essam Sharaf will visit Ethiopia, Uganda and Congo next month. This corroborated by Ethiopian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Dina Mufti, who informed Reuters, in the news quoted above, that Egypt’s new Prime Minister, Essam Sharaf, had asked to visit Ethiopia.
Ambassador Mona Omar also said that Al-Azhar University and the Egyptian Coptic Church are important tools in addressing the Nile dispute. This was already indicated in their new draft strategy paper on Nile issue. (published in this blog – link)
Though it is not clear yet how Al-Azhar will play a role, there is a new confirmation on the planned visit of Pope Shenouda that was previously reported.
A high level delegation of the Egyptian Coptic Church headed by Pope Shenouda III, Patriarch of Saint Mark Episcopate, is to travel to Addis and meet Patriarch Abune Paulos of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church at a date to be announced in the coming days. The delegation may also include prominent personalities from the Egyptian public.
According to the news posted on two sites (this and this), which are apparently associated with the Egyptian Coptic Church, the delegation intends ‘to examine the grass-roots initiatives between the two churches to help solve the Nile water crisis, Ethiopian dams and review of the Framework Agreement on the distribution of Nile water…. and bring the views over between Cairo and Addis Ababa’.
Speaking of the planned visit, Bishop Thiiodcios, Bishop of Giza, claimed that ‘the relationship between the two churches is at its best’, and denied ‘the existence of any differences between the two churches.’
According to the news, the Bishop said, that ‘Pope Shenouda is like a father to Patriarch Abune Paulos’. He added, ‘Ethiopian Orthodox Church appreciates the Egyptian Church and considers it like a mother church, and that the separation of the Ethiopian Church from the Egyptian Church in 1959 was an administrative separation not a spiritual one .’
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