Sisi warns Ethiopia of taking single drop of Egyptian water, says ‘all options are open’

CAIRO – 7 April 2021: Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi urged Ethiopia on Wednesday to cooperate with Egypt on the water file, saying “all options are open” in the event of any harm to a single water drop.

“I tell our Ethiopian brothers: we should not reach the level that you mess with a water drop in Egypt, because all options are open,” Sisi said, while inaugurating the secured and smart documents complex.

Rounds of negotiations among Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia have reached a deadlock several times to reach an agreement of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

The African Union-sponsored talks this week held in the Congolese capital of Kinshasa also failed to reach an agreement on the path of negotiations among the three countries.

Egypt and Sudan insist that a legally binding agreement on the filling and operation of the dam should be reached before Ethiopia implements the second phase of dam filling.

Ethiopia, on the other hand, reiterated that it would complete filling the dam in July whether an agreement is reached or not.

“Cooperation between each other and building together is much better than that we disagree and struggle,” Sisi said.

“We must have been learned from at least the challenges that we have witnessed; we saw the extent of cost that was caused by any confrontation,” El-Sisi said, mentioned the military confrontations in 1962 and 1967.

On water share, Sisi said the current water path from Ethiopia to Egypt is a divine creation. He added that through the past years, the Ethiopian public opinion has been unsatisfied with this path.

“It is God who put the water there and who made it come to Egypt. If the Egyptian land was a high ground, then nothing would have come,” El-Sisi stated.

“What God created would not be changed by human beings,” El-Sisi added.

The president said Egypt respects the development goals of other nations without a harm to the Egyptian water rights.

“I have not altered my words; we respect the development [goals of other nations] to improve the situation of their peoples, withing the framework that this does not harm the Egyptian water interests,” El-Sisi said.

“We are coordinating measures with Sudan, we announce to the world the justice of our cause within the framework of the international law and concerned international norms on the movement of transboundary rivers,” El-Sisi said.