Commenting on the talk of one of Ethiopia’s negotiators about “securing Addis Ababa’s water interests first before signing any agreement.”
- The Egyptian Foreign Minister confirmed, in televised statements, that there is an international consensus to hold the Libyan elections on time, in response to a question about lawsuits calling for them to be postponed for a year.
On Sunday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said that Ethiopia’s statements regarding setting conditions for an agreement on the Renaissance Dam crisis are “evasive and do not bode well for its completion.”
This came in a televised statement with the Egyptian media, Ahmed Moussa, on his program on the “Echo of the Country” channel (local private), in response to a question regarding the talk of one of Ethiopia’s negotiators about “securing Addis Ababa’s water interests first before signing any agreement.”
Shoukry said: “Such Ethiopian statements are a continuation of fallacies, prevarication, and lack of credibility, and this does not bode well for the existence of a political will to reach an agreement.”
And Saturday, a member of the Ethiopian negotiating team on the Renaissance Dam, Ibrahim Idris, said that his country “will not accept a settlement against its national interests in any form,” in response to a question from the official Ethiopian News Agency about the possibility of signing a binding agreement.
He added, “If Ethiopia signs any agreement with Egypt and Sudan, this will only happen when national interests and the future of development are secured in making use of water resources.”
Egypt and Sudan exchange accusations with Ethiopia of being responsible for a five-month stalemate in the dam negotiations, which is sponsored by the African Union within a negotiating track that began about 10 years ago, due to differences over construction, operation and filling, amid anticipation for the return of negotiations at the invitation of the Security Council issued in the middle of this month.
In response to a question about what is being raised inside Libya to postpone its elections for a year, Shoukry affirmed that there is an international consensus to hold the Libyan elections on their scheduled date on December 24.
On Friday, the head of the national unity government in Libya, Abdel Hamid Dabaiba, stressed the need to hold the elections on time.
Recently, tensions have returned between the institutions of governance in Libya, as a result of differences between the House of Representatives on the one hand and the Supreme Council of State, the unity government and the Presidential Council on the other hand, especially over the powers and electoral bills.
This threatens the political breakthrough that Libya has witnessed for months, when an elected transitional authority, comprising a unity government and a presidential council, assumed its duties on March 16 to lead the country to parliamentary and presidential elections on December 24.
