Egypt comfortable with US role in solving conflict with Ethiopia

CAIRO - The decision by President Donald Trump to solve the conflict between Egypt and Ethiopia over Nile waters has been welcomed, in what could end months of standoff between the two countries, which have been at loggerheads for years.

Ethiopia did a massive dam — the Grand Renaissance Dam along the Blue Nile, the main tributary of the Nile River, Egypt's principal source of freshwater, leading to diplomatic fallout between the two countries.

Speaking during a meeting at the White House with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Monday, the US president emphasised the importance of the Nile River's water for Egypt, a country which is largely a desert, using water from the Nile for irrigation.

"I think if I were Egypt, I would want to have water in the Nile, and we are working on that," President Trump said.

He lashed out at the Ethiopian dam, noting that it closes off water to the Nile, even referring to Egypt's dependence on the river for over 97 percent of its water needs, Addis Standard reports.

But Trump now says he will work hard to get a negotiated solution to the standoff between Cairo and Addis Ababa. Right from the beginning, the US has been pushing for a negotiated outcome to reduce tensions between the two nations.

This was the second time the US president had referred to the Egyptian-Ethiopian dispute over the dam, officially known as the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), in a month that was commissioned a few months ago.

In late June, he claimed that previous administrations had financed the Ethiopian dam project, criticising it for blocking the flow of the Nile River's waters to Egypt. Cairo is pushing for a deal with Ethiopia to end the stalemate, with the US actively involved.

Nevertheless, 12 years of negotiations between the two sides, along with Sudan, another Nile River riparian state, yielded no results, which led Egypt to accuse Ethiopia of acting unilaterally and violating the 2015 Declaration of Principles on the dam, overlooking Egyptian concerns.

Egypt recently vowed to protect Somalia's waters in what is seen as a retaliatory move to block Ethiopia from building a military base in Somalia. This guided Egypt's decision to deploy elite forces to Somalia for a peacekeeping mission, much to the detriment of Ethiopians.

The northern African nation has also invested in Somalia’s military training, a strategy aimed at exerting dominance in the Horn of Africa and potentially challenging Ethiopia. Somalia signed a military pact with Egypt when its territorial integrity and sovereignty were under trial following Ethiopia's deal with Somaliland — a breakaway state of Somalia.

GAROWE ONLINE