Going to war with Ethiopia, Sudan is not an option: Radi

CAIRO –18 January 2018: The recent visit of the Ethiopian prime minister to Egypt reflects Egypt’s long standing keenness to build bridges and open up new prospects of cooperation based on common interests, Presidency Spokesperson Bassam Radi announced on Wednesday.

During his phone in with TV Program DMC Evening, Radi asserted that the mutual talks between the Ethiopian and Egyptian sides took on several issues of common interest, with Ethiopia’s grand dam coming on top of these issues. Radi confirmed President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi’s previous statements, where the president made it clear that Egypt has no intentions to war with Ethiopia or Sudan and that Egypt has always been a peace loving country.

Since May 2011, Cairo has voiced its concern over how the Renaissace Dam can reduce the country’s annual share of more than 56 billion cubic meters of Nile water.

Egypt’s average water per-capita is expected to drop from 663 cubic meters per year to 582 cubic meters by 2025, according to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS). Addis Ababa, however, claimed that the dam is necessary for Ethiopia’s development and will not harm downstream countries

During his visit to Ethiopia in late December, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry went public with the country’s proposal to have the World Bank as a neutral mediator in the tripartite talks concerning the technical studies of Ethiopia’s grand dam.