{"id":8437,"date":"2013-06-13T10:54:13","date_gmt":"2013-06-13T10:54:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/ethiopia-signes-river-nile-treaty-amid-egypt\/"},"modified":"2013-06-13T10:54:48","modified_gmt":"2013-06-13T10:54:48","slug":"ethiopia-signes-river-nile-treaty-amid-egypt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/ethiopia-signes-river-nile-treaty-amid-egypt\/","title":{"rendered":"Ethiopia Signes River Nile treaty amid Egypt tension"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ethiopia’s parliament has ratified a treaty intended to replace colonial-era agreements that gave Egypt and Sudan the biggest share of the Nile’s water.<\/p>\n

The move comes amid growing tensions with Egypt over Ethiopia’s plans for a hydroelectric dam on the Blue Nile.<\/p>\n

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi said on Monday he did not want war but would not allow Egypt’s water supply to be endangered.<\/p>\n

He said that he was keeping “all options open”.<\/p>\n

Cairo is worried that the dam will reduce the water supply vital for its 84 million people.<\/p>\n

In the latest move, the Ethiopian parliament unanimously endorsed the new Nile River Co-operative Framework Agreement, an accord already signed by five other Nile-basin countries – Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya and Burundi.<\/p>\n

The accord is the product of long negotiations to replace the 1929 treaty written by Britain that awarded Egypt veto power over any project involving the Nile by upstream countries.<\/p>\n

Sudan and Egypt also signed a deal in 1959 dividing the Nile’s waters between them.<\/p>\n

The new agreement would establish a permanent body to oversee river management.<\/p>\n

“Most of the upstream countries have approved it through their parliaments,” Ethiopian government spokesman Bereket Simon said.<\/p>\n

“We delayed it as a gesture of goodwill to the people of Egypt until a formal elected government was in place.<\/p>\n

“We have a principled stance on the construction of dams. We are determined to see our projects brought to completion.”<\/p>\n

Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr is due to visit Addis Ababa on Sunday for talks about the dam.<\/p>\n

However, Ethiopia’s foreign ministry has said there is no question of suspending work.<\/p>\n

The African Union has urged dialogue and co-operation between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan.<\/p>\n

Ethiopia says the $4.7bn (\u00a33.1bn) Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will eventually provide 6,000 megawatts of power.<\/p>\n

Egypt was apparently caught by surprise when Ethiopia started diverting the Blue Nile – a tributary of the Nile – last month.<\/p>\n

Addis Ababa says the river will be slightly diverted but will then be able to follow its natural course.<\/p>\n

Mr Morsi said Egypt had no objection to projects in Nile basin states “on condition that those projects do not affect or damage Egypt’s legal and historical rights”.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month Egyptian politicians were inadvertently heard on live TV proposing military action over the dam.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ethiopia’s parliament has ratified a treaty intended to replace colonial-era agreements that gave Egypt and Sudan the biggest share of the Nile’s water. The move comes amid growing tensions with Egypt over Ethiopia’s plans for a hydroelectric dam on the Blue Nile. Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi said on Monday he did not want war but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[99],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-8437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8437\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8437"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=8437"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=8437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}