Egypt Independent

General Mohamed Ali Bilal, commander of Egyptian forces during the Gulf war, said that it is “impossible” to strike the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam because such a decision would be issuing a challenge to the entire world.

Bilal told al-Arabiya satellite channel on Wednesday that such an attack would bring Egypt into conflict with those countries, such as China and Israel, whose citizens are involved in the construction of the dam. Egypt is not in a position to stand up to all those countries, he added.

He also said that, when the US launched Desert Storm and invaded Kuwait, it did so under the auspices of the UN. Besides, he added, there seems to be international consensus that Ethiopia has the right to build the dam.

He emphasized that the US had planned its construction and that Israel is providing technical support. In Bilal’s view, the only way to tackle the crisis is to persuade the US to intervene on Egypt's behalf and convince the Ethiopians to mitigate the impact construction of the dam will have.

Major General Ahmed Abdel Halim, a security and strategic expert, said that a diplomatic solution is the best way of handling this issue, while adding that striking the dam would not bring the aspired results.

He also said that, as a last resort, Egypt could present its case to the International Court of Justice, the Security Council, and the International Criminal Court.

        Edited translation from MENA

Mideast analysts are concerned about Ethiopia’s diverting a stretch of the Blue Nile to construct a dam

Cairo

Experts on Middle Eastern hydro politics have described Ethiopia’s diverting a stretch of the Blue Nile to make way for a hydroelectric dam as “a unilateral move" that risked a regional war.

Speaking to the Anadolu Agency (AA), Hani Rislan, director of al-Ahram Political and Strategic Research Center Africa Unit said “Renaissance Dam is part of a giant project composed of 4 dams which will gather 200 billion cubic meters of water.”

Rislan said the project threatened Egypt with drought, a $4 million revenue loss in agriculture, unemployment of 2 million families and with compromising the potential of Egypt's main hydroplant, the Aswan Dam.
Rislan said that Ethiopia’s "surprising decision" meant that the dam construction was pre-planned and it jeopardized possibility of cooperation between the three riparian states, the third being Sudan.
 "Khartoum may submerge"
Professor Ala al-Zewahiri from Hydraulics Engineering Department of Cairo University said Egypt and Sudan do not face any immediate risks in the short-run but until after the construction of the dam was completed.
"In terms of geopolitics, the dam is constructed on an unfavorable location between two mountains, which would lead faults, causing Sudan’s capital Khartoum to submerge" said, al-Zewahiri.
Ethiopian move risks regional war
Salman Mohammed Ahmed Salman, a former advisor to UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and an expert on African water resources claimed that the diversion project could lead to a regional war.
Expressing his concern over the possibility that Egyptian radical militants and political figures' might use the dam project as a pretext to attack Ethiopia and other riparian countries.
Ethiopia, the source of the Blue Nile, wants to take more water from the river, claiming it will meet its electricity and food supply. However, a 1929 agreement between Egypt and Britain as guarantor state gives Egypt most of the Nile's waters.
Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) in 1999 was designed in order to solve the problems between upstream and downstream countries. As it failed, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya, as riparian states, signed Entebbe Agreement in 2010 envisaging that all riparian states have the right to access to the Nile.
While South Sudan is also expected to be part of the agreement shortly, Egypt and Sudan, acting together, are opposed to the agreement on the grounds that it harmed their vital water resources.
   Source:- http://www.aa.com.tr/en/rss/188277--ethiopia-acting-unilaterally-on-blue-nile-dam-analysts-say

CAIRO, May 30 (KUNA) -- Egypt has addressed a stern message to Ethiopia stressing that waters of the Nile are of paramount importance for the Egyptian people and that Cairo expects the Ethiopian side honor pertinent obligations, the state-run Middle East News Agency (MENA) said on Thursday.
MENA in a report datelined Addis Ababa quoted the Egyptian Ambassador to Ethiopia, Mohammad Idriss, as saying that he held talks with senior officials of the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry to express the Egyptian unwavering and explicit stance "regarding the water interests of the Egyptian people, as a matter of life and existence and that any infringement on it targets the higher interests of Egypt." The people of Egypt are shocked and upset due to Ethiopia's decision to alter course of the river, MENA quoted the ambassador as telling the Ethiopian officials.

No country should seek to cause hunger and thirst in Egypt, "and such a step would create a dangerous situation that might undermine stability and peace and security in this strategic and vital region of the world," stressed Idriss.
He added that the Ethiopian officials assured him that change course of part of the river would not affect flow of the water to Egypt.
On Wednesday, Egypt's Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned Ethiopian Ambassador in Cairo Mahmoud Dardir over Ethiopia's recent move of diverting the course of the river for construction of its Renaissance Dam.
The Blue Nile provides Egypt with the lion's share of its annual 55 billion cubic meters of river water.
Egypt is believed to need an additional 21 billion cubic meters of water per year by 2050 - on top of its current quota of 55 billion meters - to meet the needs of a projected population of 150 million. (end) rg.rk KUNA 301247 May 13NNNN

          Source:- http://www.kuna.net.kw/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=2313963&Language=en

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