Egypt and Sudan urged the UN Security Council on Thursday to undertake "preventive diplomacy" and call for a legally binding agreement to resolve a dispute with Ethiopia over the availability of water from its dam on the Nile River, but Ethiopia insisted the matter can be solved by the African Union and many council members agreed.
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Egypt and Sudan called for the council meeting and sent their foreign ministers to New York to appeal for council action, saying 10 years of negotiations with Ethiopia have failed and the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam or GERD is starting a second filling of its reservoir which not only violates a 2015 agreement but poses "an existential threat" to 150 million people in their downstream nations.
Ethiopia's water minister Seleshi Bekele Awulachew told the council that filling the reservoir was part of the dam's construction and the Security Council should not be involved in the issue of Nile waters, saying no issue is further from its mandate of ensuring international peace and security.
Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shukry and Sudan's Foreign Minister Mariam al-Mahdi blamed Ethiopia for lacking political will.
They urged the Security Council to approve a Tunisian-drafted resolution that would require Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia to negotiate a legally binding agreement within six months under AU auspices "that ensures Ethiopia's ability to generate hydropower ... while preventing the inflicting of significant harm on the water security of downstream states."
Al-Mahdi said Sudan and Egypt believe reaching an agreement within six months is "very possible if the political will is available."
