Cairo – High-level Egyptian sources shared details with Al-Akhbar
on Ethiopia’s plans for its “Grand Renaissance Dam” on the Blue Nile,
revealing that Israel is attempting to acquire a stake in the river.
Egypt has initiated legal action to counter the Ethiopian dam project
based on the Nile Water Agreement of 1929, which prohibits tampering
with the quotas of the riparian countries of the Nile, or building dams
without the consent of those countries. Egypt has formed a national
committee to follow up on the crisis with Ethiopia.
Al-Akhbar’s sources said that eight months ago Ethiopia issued
bonds to finance the construction of the Renaissance Dam. A large
proportion of these bonds were offered through the country’s embassy in
Tel Aviv, with Israeli parties acquiring a significant number of these
bonds.
According to the same sources, the Egyptian president knew of
Ethiopia’s dealings with Israel at the time, but took no action. This,
the sources said, stirred up tension in Egyptian diplomatic circles and
the armed forces.
Further information points to
regional and international attempts, with a key role played by Israel,
to revive and push for the ratification of the UN Watercourses
Convention, a “global framework agreement that would give countries in
the region the right to share water resources, and redistribute quotas
accordingly.”
According to the sources, if Israel is officially designated as a
country of the Middle East, it “would give Israel rights to the waters
of the Nile.”
The sources pointed out that Israel is already collaborating in
sectors like water and agriculture with several African nations,
including Ethiopia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Botswana, and Mozambique.
“There are Israeli experts living in those countries,” they said, “as
well as Israeli military installations in the Red Sea, including a base
in the Eritrean Dahlak Archipelago, which Israel had acquired when
Eritrea was part of Ethiopia.” The sources added that after Eritrea’s
takeover of the Hanish Islands, it also allowed Israel to establish
facilities of an “unknown nature.” These sources said that Israel
established an advanced intelligence station run by Mossad in mountains
near the border with Sudan.
The sources maintained that in the late 1990s, direct talks took
place between Ethiopia and Israel. Egypt was offered a higher share in
the Nile waters in return for selling water to Israel. Cairo rejected
the deal at the time.
Furthermore, they added, a US-Egyptian strategic dialogue saw some
fundamental disagreements erupt between Cairo and Washington over the
Nile Basin issue and South Sudan.
In one meeting between then-US secretary of state Madeleine Albright
and her Egyptian counterpart Amr Moussa, Albright refused to acknowledge
Egyptian interests in Sudan. According to the minutes of that meeting,
Albright told Moussa that “Egypt must forget its hegemony over Sudan,
but must not forget that there is only one player in the region, namely,
Washington.”
During the secret talks, Albright outlined the US vision, which was
based on the following: The East African nations form a single bloc;
Sudan is a key source of foodstuffs and crops; and South Sudan floats
above a lake of oil.
Egypt’s current approach to the crisis over the Nile maintains that
the river will not be subject to any multilateral negotiations, and must
not be linked to the status of other rivers in the Middle East. The
Nile treaties in place are stable, and Egypt’s legal rights are clear
regionally and internationally. Finally, Egypt will categorically reject
any talk of redistributing water quotas in the Nile Basin or the Middle
East.
http://english.al-akhbar.com/
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