DR Congo President Felix Tshisekedi on Sunday vowed to follow a resolution on a long-running dispute over the mega-dam of the Blue Nile River in Ethiopia during his tenure as president of the African Union.
Tshisekedi began his one-year term as AU chairperson in place of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa at a virtual summit of African heads of state this past weekend.
Commenting on the two-day summit, Tshisekedi said that there is a will to implement innovative solutions that lead to the peaceful settlement of differences between countries, especially to provide solutions to problems that Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia are currently dividing over construction. of the Renaissance dam. on the Nile River. ‘
The dam has been a source of tension in the Horn of Africa since Ethiopia broke territory on it a decade ago, prompting several rounds of unconvincing talks.
Ethiopia says the hydroelectric power produced by the dam will be essential to meet the energy needs of its 110 million inhabitants.
Egypt, which is about 97 percent dependent on the irrigation and drinking water of the Nile, sees the dam as an existential threat.
Sudan hopes the project will regulate the annual floods, but fears that its own dams, including the Roseires and Merowe, would be damaged if no agreement was reached on its operations.
Last year, Ethiopia announced that it had achieved its first-year goal for filling the dam’s reservoir. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government also recently indicated that it will continue to fill during the coming rainy season, regardless of whether an agreement is reached.
On Saturday, Water Minister Yasser Abbas of Sudan warned Ethiopia to proceed with the second phase of the filling and said in an interview with AFP that it would be a “direct threat to Sudanese national security”.
Tshisekedi did not specify how the AU could be involved under his leadership on the dam issue, but the AU has been involved in several rounds in the past, including one that took place last month that could not succeed.
On Friday, the Minister of Water, Ethiopia, Seleshi Bekele, Sudan and Egypt accused them of collaborating to halt progress in negotiations.
“We expect (Tshisekedi) as a member of the AU to fulfill his role in the Renaissance Dam talks in the right way, without prejudice to anyone’s right,” he told reporters in Addis Ababa.
The Nile, the longest river in the world, is a lifeline that supplies water and electricity to the ten countries it traverses.
The main tributaries, the White Nile and the Blue Nile, converge in Khartoum before flowing north through Egypt to drain into the Mediterranean Sea.
rcb / dl