New African Union President pledges to seek settlement of the Dam dispute

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The President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Felix Tshisekedi, pledged Sunday that during his tenure as presidency of the African Union, he would continue to seek a solution to the long-standing dispute over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile.

Tshisekedi assumed the rotating presidency of the African Union for a year, succeeding South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, during a summit of leaders of the African Union held via the Internet at the end of the week.

At the conclusion of the two-day summit, Tshisekedi said that there is an intention to find solutions leading to a peaceful settlement of differences between countries, especially finding solutions to problems that sow discord between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia against the backdrop of the construction of the Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile.

Since 2011, the Renaissance Dam project has raised tension in the Horn of Africa, while negotiations between the three countries have not yielded an agreement on its mobilization and operation.

Ethiopia stresses that the hydroelectric power produced at the dam is necessary to meet the energy needs of its 110 million people. It insists that downstream water supplies will not be affected.

For its part, Egypt, which depends on the Nile River to provide 97% of its water needs, considers the dam an existential threat to it.

Sudan hopes that the new dam will contribute to reducing the floods that the country witnesses annually, but on the other hand, it fears that failure to reach an agreement on its operation will negatively affect its dams, especially on the Rasiris and Meroe dams.

Addis Ababa announced in July that it had achieved its goal of filling the dam for the first year. It confirmed recently that it will continue filling work during the coming winter without waiting for an agreement to be reached with Khartoum and Cairo on this contentious issue.

And on Saturday, the Sudanese Minister of Irrigation, Yasser Abbas, warned in an interview with Agence France-Presse that if the second filling of the Renaissance Dam takes place next July, this is a direct threat to our national security.

Tshisekedi did not specify the approach that the AU intends to adopt regarding the Renaissance Dam during its tenure, noting that the Union had previously engaged in unproductive rounds of negotiations, including one that took place last month.

On Friday, the Ethiopian Minister of Water and Irrigation, Seles Bekele, accused Sudan and Egypt of obstructing the negotiations.

He said, Egypt and Sudan were not able to reach an agreement by presenting contradictory views. Ethiopia wonders whether the two downstream countries want to reach an agreement or not, according to what was quoted by the Ethiopian News Agency.

We expect (Tshisekedi), as a member state of the African Union, to play its role in the Renaissance Dam talks appropriately, without infringing on anyone's rights, the minister told reporters in Addis Ababa.

The Nile, the longest river in the world, is a lifeline for the ten countries it crosses, providing them with drinking water and electricity.

The Blue Nile, which meets the White Nile in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, provides the vast majority of the Nile’s water that flows through northern Sudan and Egypt to the Mediterranean.