Egyptian FM slams Sudanese Nile water claims

By Mohamed al-Rayyes

CAIRO

Egypt’s foreign minister on Wednesday said that any water that Egypt might have taken earlier from Sudan’s share of the Nile River had been taken with Khartoum’s consent.

Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry made the remarks in a Wednesday interview with flagship Egyptian state daily Al-Ahram.

Shoukry’s comments came in response to recent assertions by Ibrahim Ghandour, his Sudanese counterpart, that in recent years Egypt had frequently dipped into Sudan’s share of Nile water.

Egypt, Ghandour said Tuesday, feared it would have to halt this practice once Ethiopia completed its Grand Renaissance Dam project, a massive hydro-electric dam currently under construction on the While Nile.

In the interview, Shoukry described Ghandour’s claims as “inaccurate”, going on to assert that Sudan “usually exhausts its entire annual share of [Nile] water”, which, he noted, stood at some 18.5 billion cubic meters.

Egypt, he added, had only dipped into Sudan’s share of Nile water when the latter had lacked the capacity to store the water -- and always with the consent of Khartoum.

Last week, Egypt suspended its participation in ongoing technical negotiations with Sudan and Ethiopia over the anticipated effects of the Grand Renaissance Dam.

On Saturday, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi declared that “no one can play” with Egypt's traditional share of Nile water, which he described as “a matter of life and death".

Egypt fears the dam’s construction will negatively affect its historical share of Nile water, which -- under a colonial-era water-sharing treaty -- stands at 55.5 billion cubic meters of water per year.

Addis Ababa, for its part, says electricity generated by the dam -- which was initially slated for completion this year -- will help eradicate poverty and contribute to the country’s development.