Egypt’s PM says Ethiopian Nile dam “act of defiance,” vows Egypt will not cede a drop of water

Hassan Ammar/Associated Press - An Egyptian fishes with a net in the Nile River, in Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, June 5, 2013. Egyptian officials tried to cool tensions with Ethiopia Wednesday over the new Nile River dam project by highlighting its “neighborliness” as the Ethiopian prime minister’s spokesman insisted that nothing would stop the dam from being completed upstream from Egypt, which is wholly dependent on Nile River water.

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 Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Kandil says the Nile River dam which Ethiopia is building is an “act of defiance” and stressed that Egypt will not give up “a single drop of water.”

Kandil told Egypt’s interim parliament on Monday that the country will work diplomatically, legally and technically to negotiate with Ethiopia over the dam.

Egypt is facing the prospect of a worsening water shortage when the so-called Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is completed.
Experts estimate that Egypt could lose as much as 20 percent of its Nile water in the three to five years needed for Ethiopia to fill a massive planned reservoir.
Last week, Egyptian political leaders caused uproar after proposing to aid rebels against the Ethiopian government and sabotaging the dam itself. Ethiopia demanded an official explanation.
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