Egypt said on Tuesday it had accepted a US
invitation to a meeting of foreign ministers over a project for a
giant hydropower dam on
Ethiopia’s Blue Nile that is causing an escalating spat between the two African
countries.
The meeting of foreign ministers of Egypt, Ethiopia
and Sudan, the three nations directly affected by the project, will be held
in Washington, Egypt’s foreign ministry said, without stating a date or if the
other nations had agreed.
“Egypt has received an invitation from the US
administration,” the ministry said in a statement, adding, “an
invitation that Egypt immediately accepted.”
Egypt is worried that the Grand Ethiopian
Renaissance Dam (GERD), under construction near
Ethiopia’s border with Sudan, will restrict supplies of already scarce Nile
waters on which it is almost entirely dependent.
After years of three-way talks with Ethiopia and
Sudan, it says it has exhausted efforts to reach a pact on conditions for
operating the dam and filling the reservoir behind.
Ethiopia says the dam is crucial to its economic
development and has denied that the talks between the three are stalled,
accusing Egypt of trying to sidestep the process.
Ethiopia will not be stopped from building the dam,
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said on Tuesday.
Abiy, who won the Nobel prize this month for his
peace-making efforts with long-time enemy Eritrea, also raised the prospect of
conflict over the dam, saying, “If we are going to war…we can deploy
many millions. But war is not a solution.”
Egypt criticised the comments as
“unacceptable” and the foreign ministry said: “Egypt …
expressed its shock, great concern and deep regret over comments conveyed by
media and attributed to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.”
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is expected
to meet Abiy during a Russia-Africa summit this week. Egypt
has suggested bringing in an outside party, possibly the World Bank or the
United States, to mediate the dispute.
Ethiopia has previously rejected bringing in a mediator. http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/egypt-accepts-invitation-to-meet-in-us-over-ethiopia-dam-dispute-2019-10-23
