Reaching an impasse: Egypt raises the stakes against Ethiopia over Nile dam dispute

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty has raised speculation about what his country might be up to in its showdown with Ethiopia over its Blue Nile dam, also known as the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD); the project threatens to deprive Egypt of a sizeable amount of its annual water share from the Nile River, its principal source of fresh water.

The minister said his country reserves "the right to defend itself" against GERD's potential effects.

Negotiations between Egypt and Ethiopia over the dam project, Minister Abdelatty also declared, had reached an impasse. 

He noted that Egypt had exercised the highest degree of self-restraint in negotiating with the Ethiopians over the dam in recent years.

"Egypt had utilised all peaceful and diplomatic tools to reach a legally binding deal over the filling and the operation of the dam," Minister Abdelatty said during an interview with a local television channel on 29 June.

"Nevertheless, the Ethiopian side had opted for a unilateral approach, rejecting to cooperate seriously or show flexibility in the negotiating process," he added.

He described his country's water security as a "red line", noting that Ethiopia posed an "existential threat" to Egypt by trying to impose a status quo.

GERD's ramifications 

Since the beginning of its construction in 2011, the GERD has fallen at the centre of tensions between Egypt and Ethiopia, particular with Egypt, which views the multibillion-dollar hydroelectric dam as a threat to its water supply.

Egypt's annual share of 55.5 billion cubic metres of water from the Nile River covers only a fraction of its population's needs and the requirements of its agricultural and industrial activities.

The same share is also facing intense pressure from global warming, which increases water evaporation. Consequently, the actual amount of water dripping from taps around the nation, specialists in Cairo argued.

"The rise in temperatures increases water evaporation as well as consumption," Abbas Sharaqi, a professor of geology and water resources at Cairo University, told The New Arab.

"This puts even more pressure on the limited water resources Egypt has," he added.

Egypt's water share from the Nile River remains unchanged, while its population continues to grow, reaching 114 million, and millions of refugees also reside in the country.

Over 140 metres high and accommodating a reservoir the size of the Greater London area, the GERD is expected to exacerbate Egypt's water poverty and derail the Arab country's agricultural development plans, forcing it to increase dependence on food imports.

To compensate for the potential loss of water to the Ethiopian dam, Egypt has embarked on the costly construction of a series of sewage treatment and seawater desalination plants in different parts of the country.

Some of the Arab country's agricultural expansion projects currently depend on treated water entirely for irrigation.

In describing the GERD as a threat to his country's existence, the Egyptian foreign minister echoed Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi who also repeatedly branded the Ethiopian dam project in the same manner.

Sisi also repeatedly said several times in recent years that his country's water security is a "red line" Cairo would not allow anybody to cross.

His remarks follow unremitting Egyptian attempts to reach a legally binding deal with Ethiopia and Sudan, another Nile River riparian state, over the filling and the operation of the dam.

Almost 12 years of negotiations between the three states over the dam had produced nothing, with the Egyptians accusing the Ethiopians of using the negotiations as a tool to buy time until the dam becomes an irreversible reality on the ground.

"Since the very beginning, the Ethiopians were keen to make sure that the negotiations were separate from the construction of the dam itself," Sharaqi said.

"This sabotaged, however, the whole thing because Egypt wanted the specifications of the dam to be the core point of the negotiating process," he added.

He noted that the Ethiopians' intransigence during the negotiations had political motivations behind it.

Negotiations over the dam running into the ground have stirred up debate about what could be done next to end the stalemate over the Ethiopian dam project.

This is why the Egyptian foreign minister's remarks about his country reserving the right to defend itself against the dam's effects raise many questions about what Egypt can do to end this stalemate or keep this "existential threat" at bay.

Egypt has already set aside diplomacy and begun taking measures to deter Ethiopia from interfering with its water security.

These measures included a raft of common defence and military cooperation deals with Ethiopia's neighbouring countries.

They also included the deployment of Egyptian troops in Somalia, a few kilometres away from the Ethiopian border.

Whether all these measures lay the groundwork for the showdown over the Ethiopian dam to take a violent turn will be seen in the coming period. If it does, it will be one of Africa's earliest water wars.

Important timing

In Cairo, political analysts find connections between the timing of the Egyptian foreign minister's remarks about the Ethiopian dam and statements made in mid-June by US President Donald Trump about the same issue.

Writing on X, the US president faulted previous administrations for financing the Ethiopian dam and cited its negative effects on Egypt's water supply.

He also referred to his past efforts to bring about peace between Egypt and Ethiopia in the row over the dam.

Trump championed a failed bid to get Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan to agree to a legally binding deal on the filling and the operation of the dam during his first term.

Nonetheless, the Ethiopians did not show up on the day designated for signing the agreement.

In October 2020, he warned that Egypt might blow up the Ethiopian dam.

However, nationally-minded analysts believe that Egypt might not go as far as getting itself embroiled in a military confrontation with Ethiopia to resolve the dam issue, at least for the time being.

This comes amid the belief that the Ethiopian dam can be a trap aimed at draining Egypt's military resources in a fight to achieve objectives that can otherwise be achieved via less costly means.

Analysts argue that Egypt has attempted to capitalise on President Trump's latest remarks about the dam by indirectly inviting the US president to help bring about a settlement to the dam issue that is satisfactory to all parties, especially after he succeeded in hammering out peace between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

"Nobody knows whether the US has a plan for the negotiations, one that guarantees Ethiopia's acquiescence to a legally binding deal on water management in cases of drought," Ambassador Rakha Ahmed, a former assistant to the Egyptian foreign minister, told TNA.

"I believe the whole thing depends on Ethiopia, which insists on signing a legally unbinding deal that will do nothing to serve Egypt, which relies on the Nile River for over 90 percent of its water needs," he added.

He expressed hopes that the US can put pressure on Ethiopia to sign a legally binding deal.