Cairo: Ethiopia said he had started the next phase filling controversial mega-dam on the Nile, Egyptian authorities said Monday, raising tensions in front of the upcoming UN Security Council.
Egypt said the move was “violations of laws and international laws governing projects built on tubs with international rivers,” and have stated “strict rejection of this unilateral size”, said the ministry of irrigation in a statement Monday.
The Renaissance Grand Ethiopian dam, which is regulated as the largest hydropower power plant project in Africa when it is finished, is the source of diplomatic stand-offs that are almost decades between Addis Ababa and the downstream countries of Egypt and Sudan.
Ethiopia said this project was important for its development, but Cairo and Khartoum were worried that they could limit access to their citizens’ water.
The two countries have encouraged Addis Ababa to withdraw an agreement to bind up the charging and operation of the dam, and has urged the UN Security Council to take this problem in recent weeks.
Thursday’s meeting was asked by Tunisia in the name Egypt and Sudan, a diplomatic source told AFP.
But the French Ambassador to the United Nations said last week that the board itself could do a little other than bringing a shared side.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Samh Shoukry said in one record to the United Nations that negotiations were in the deadlock, and accused Ethiopia adopting “independence policy that damaged our collective efforts to reach an agreement.” Addis Ababa previously announced it would continue to the second stage filling in July, with or without agreement.
The Nile – which is around 3,700 miles (6,000 kilometers) is one of the longest rivers in the world – is an essential water source and electricity for dozens of countries in East Africa.
Egypt, which depends on the Nile for around 97 percent of irrigation and drinking water, see the dam as an existential threat.
Sudan hopes the project will arrange annual flooding but worried that the dam will be harmed without an agreement on Ethiopian operations.
The mega-dam 145 meters (475 feet), where construction began in 2011, has a capacity of 74 billion cubic meters.
The charging began last year, with Ethiopia announced in July 2020 it has reached its target of 4.9 billion cubic meters – enough to test the two first turbines of the dam, an important milestone on the way to energy.
The aim is to confiscate 13.5 billion additional cubic meters this year.
Egypt and Sudan want a trilateral agreement on the operation of the dam that will be contacted before charging begins.
But Ethiopia said it was a natural part of construction, and therefore it could not be postponed.
Last year Sudan said the process caused water shortages, including in the capital Khartoum, Ethiopia claims debated.
Sudan’s water minister, Yasser Abbas warned in April that if Ethiopia went ahead with filling the second stage, Sudan “will file lawsuits against the Italian company that builds the Dam and the Ethiopian government”.
He said lawsuits would highlight that “environmental and social impacts and dangers of dam” have not been taken in adequate consideration.