(Daniel Berhane)
Minister Dr Mohamed Bahaa El Din, Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation, dismissed that news report that Egypt is preparing to attack Ethiopia to preserve.
It is to be recalled that MiddleEast NewsLine claimed last week that: “[Egypt’s] military has been preparing for the prospect that air strikes would be ordered to stop construction or simply destroy the Ethiopian dam,”
Minister El Din claimed that the news is baseless and there has not been such discussion in the government. He made the remarks in an interview with a channel of Al-Jazeera on Saturday evening.
Dr. El Din claimed that he, as a member of the government, would not recommend military solutions for handling the Renaissance dam issue.
This is not a weakness, the Minister noted, rather commitment to negotiation and the language of dialogue, which are certain to bring much better results. He added that talks of threats and war come back with negative results.
The Minister hopes that South Sudan will not rush to sign of the Nile Basin Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA), claiming that the signing would not add anything as it is already signed by 6 countries. The Minister is apparently saying that the CFA’s requirement of the signature of 6 countries is fulfilled and they can start ratification process with or without South Sudan anyways.
There are non-military measures
On the other-hand, former Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation, Dr. Mohamed Nasr Allam claimed there are effective measures – far from the use of violence – to pressure Ethiopia,
In an interview with an Egyptian newspaper last Friday, the former Minister ruled-out the military option to prevent Ethiopia from completing Renaissance dam, explaining that there are alternatives to solve the problem, including convincing Ethiopia to reduce the dam’s reservoir capacity from 74 billion cubic meters to 14 billion or to build smaller dams.
Dr. Allam suggested that there are many political measures which can be applied in coordination with “the brotherly State of Sudan” to pressure Ethiopia.
Refusing to buy electricity from Ethiopia could be one of such measures, he said.
Dr. Allam urged Egyptian officials to work with donors to prevent the provision of “any financial support, technical, technicians, based on the Egyptian-Sudanese booklet that shows damage to the dam”.
He also recommended strengthening ties with countries in the region such as Eritrea, Somalia and Djibouti.
Dr. Allam suggested lobbying the Nile Basin countries by explaining Egypt’s perspective, the impact of dam and that Egypt is not aganst the development of Ethiopia.
In a related development, spokesperson of Egypt’s President downplayed tensions with Ethiopia last Wednesday.
He was quoted as saying that: Ethiopia will not let its construction Renaissance Dam affect Egypt, if the dam has a negative impact, Ethiopians will “understand the situation and not allow harm to befall Egypt in the light of the historic ties between the two counties and the other Nile Basin countries” .
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(Compiled from various Arabic sites of Egypt, with the help of Google translation service)
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