Egypt's first move after the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam's inauguration: We will not allow Ethiopia to dominate our water resources.

 

Egypt's first move after the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam's opening: We will not allow Ethiopia to dominate our water resources.

Egypt's first move after the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam's inauguration: We will not allow Ethiopia to dominate our water resources.

Tuesday, September 9, 2025

The Arab Republic of Egypt addressed a letter today to the President of the United Nations Security Council following recent developments on the Blue Nile and Ethiopia's organization of an event to announce the completion and operation of its dam, which violates international law.

According to the statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Minister explained that despite all the flimsy efforts to give the Ethiopian dam a false cover of acceptance and legitimacy, the dam remains a unilateral measure that violates international law and norms and does not produce any consequences that would affect the legal system governing the Eastern Nile Basin in accordance with international law. In addition, the recent Ethiopian actions represent a new violation that is added to a long list of Ethiopian violations of international law, including the Presidential Statement of the Security Council issued on September 15, 2021. He noted that Egypt has a firm position in rejecting all Ethiopian unilateral measures in the Nile River and not recognizing them or accepting their consequences on the existential interests of the peoples of the two downstream countries, Egypt and Sudan.

 The Egyptian letter to the Security Council indicated that since the unilateral launch of the Ethiopian dam project and over the past years, Cairo has exercised the utmost restraint and chosen to resort to diplomacy and international organizations, including the United Nations, not as a result of an inability to defend our existential interests, but rather based on Egypt’s firm conviction of the importance of strengthening cooperation and achieving the common interest among the peoples of the Nile Basin countries in accordance with international law, in a way that achieves development interests and takes into account the concerns of the downstream countries. In contrast, Addis Ababa has adopted intransigent positions and sought to procrastinate in negotiations and impose a fait accompli, driven by a political agenda - 

And not development needs - to mobilize the Ethiopian interior against an imaginary enemy, under the pretext of false claims about sovereignty over the Nile River, which is the joint property of the riparian state. Egypt stressed that any misconceptions that Cairo might turn a blind eye to its existential interests in the Nile River are pure illusions, and that Egypt is committed to the application of international law on the Nile River, and will not allow Ethiopian efforts to dominate the management of water resources unilaterally, and reserves its right to take all measures guaranteed by international law and the United Nations Charter to defend the existential interests of its people.