BLOG
May 12th, 2013
Via Pensa Latina, a report from Egypt regarding the possibility of force in resolving a lingering conflict over the Nile River:
Egypt will not resort to force to resolve the dispute with Ethiopia on the quota of the Nile river water, assured the Defence Minister General Abdel Fattah el Sisi in statements cirdulated here today.
The Nile, one of the fathers rivers of mankind, whose source is in Burundi, also goes through Ethiopia, Uganda and Sudan before flowing into the Mediterranean, which characteristic explains why the south of this country is called Upper Egypt, and north Lower Egypt, contrary to the usual terms for those cardinal points.
The Ethiopians want to live and we too, we have to find a peaceful solution to this case that was abandoned for a long time, told the Defense Minister to the official newspaper Al Ahram.
In the second half of last year Egyptian military sources denied that they were building landing strips in Sudan in preparation for a campaign to resolve any conflict with Addis Ababa by the construction of the Dam Renaissance.
The quotas of water from the Nile were set in the late XIX during the colonial era and are considered void by Uganda and Ethiopia who demand a renegotiation.
A technical report on the impact of that megareservoir suggests that Egypt, where annual rainfall is minimal and lacks other sources, could face a substantial decrease of the water supply and therefore the crisis for agriculture, industry and the supply to the population.
These apprehensions were denied by official sources here, according to which the dam will not cause “water shortage, but meassures must be taken to get the amount that Ethiopia needed to store in the reservoir according to the needs and the Egyptians consent.”