![\"](\"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/ethiopia-dam_cover.jpg\")
<\/a>Egypt’s\u00a0foreign\u00a0minister returned from\u00a0Ethiopian\u00a0capital Addis Ababa confident that the two countries would work together to protect Egypt’s water rights as the construction of the Grand Renaissance Dam goes ahead.<\/p>\nSameh Shoukry said his\u00a0Ethiopian\u00a0counterpart showed understanding towards Egypt’s concerns about the massive project.<\/p>\n
“The basis of our talks was built upon the recognition of Egypt’s water rights and needs; those needs cannot be touched because they are related to\u00a0the Egyptian\u00a0people’s life,” said Shoukry, as quoted by Egypt’s state news agency MENA.<\/p>\n
The two countries have been at odds over the construction of the Grand Renaissance Dam since 2013.<\/p>\n
Ethiopia\u00a0began work on the project to divert the Blue Nile late last year. That river eventually joins with the White Nile at Khartoum in Sudan, where it forms the\u00a0river Nile\u00a0and flows on through Sudan and Egypt.<\/p>\n
Egypt is concerned the project could damage the flow of water on its stretch of the\u00a0river Nile. Cairo also claims historic rights to the river, dating back to treaties from 1929 and 1959, which it says give it the right to veto any projectsupstream.<\/p>\n
Egypt had previosly accused its southern neighbour of launching a water war, which could ultimately lead to a nationwide water shortage and crop failures, electricity shortages and political instability.<\/p>\n
However, with construction of the dam going ahead, Cairo has struck a more conciliatory tone in recent weeks.<\/p>\n
Photo by Jamal Saidi, REUTERS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Nigel Wilson Egypt’s\u00a0foreign\u00a0minister returned from\u00a0Ethiopian\u00a0capital Addis Ababa confident that the two countries would work together to protect Egypt’s water rights as the construction of the Grand Renaissance Dam goes ahead. Sameh Shoukry said his\u00a0Ethiopian\u00a0counterpart showed understanding towards Egypt’s concerns…<\/span> Read more ›<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[44,1],"tags":[3879,3880,3872,182,816,3877,179,3883,3871,3873,43,3598,3870,811,3875,3876,805,3878,3874,4968,3881,3882,966],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9108"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/72"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9108\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}