Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty has said his country “will not allow any new dams to be built on the Nile” unless agreed to in advance and carried out under international law, marking Cairo’s firmest position in years on the water dispute with Ethiopia.
In an hour-long interview broadcast on Sunday night on the Saudi network MBC, Mr Abdelatty said Egypt remained committed to lawful and diplomatic means, but would respond with “appropriate and firm measures” if its water rights were threatened.
“Any new dams that are not built by prior notification and co-ordination will face an Egyptian reaction,” he said. “Our actions will be strong, lawful, and consistent with the United Nations Charter.”
Egypt and Ethiopia have been locked in a bitter dispute for more than a decade over the anticipated effects of a vast hydroelectric dam that Addis Ababa completed this year.
Egypt, which relies on the Nile for nearly all its freshwater needs, views the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam as an existential threat, contending it will reduce its vital share of the river's water and give Ethiopia unacceptable control over its downstream flow at times of drought.
Egypt’s problem “is not with the Ethiopian people” but with “the unilateral conduct of the Ethiopian government”, said Mr Abdelatty.
He described recent developments within the Nile Basin Initiative as “a major diplomatic success for Egypt”. Talks reopened into the Co‑operative Framework Agreement − a long-stalled motion to transform the initiative into the Nile Basin Commission, an overarching authority to manage the Nile’s waters.
There had been two opp
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