Minister of Irrigation and Water Resources Mohamed Abdel Muttalib said the handling of the Renaissance Dam issue is in the hands of more than one state institution, including the Foreign Ministry and the International Cooperation Ministry.
“They are quite capable of dealing with any developments to preserve Egypt’s Nile water rights,” he said.
Ethiopia had announced that it completed 32 percent of the dam’s construction.
He pointed out that the Foreign Ministry is meeting with EU ambassadors in Cairo to brief them of Egypt’s point of view regarding the dispute with Ethiopia and of suggested practical solutions.
“The ministry is also tasking Egyptian embassies abroad with organizing seminars to explain the problem and face the Ethiopian intransigence,” he said, adding that Egypt supports any project that would make use of wasted water in the Nile Basin countries to increase its quota even by a single drop.
Senior official sources said that the role of the Irrigation Ministry will be limited to providing technical information, and that Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb is meeting with Abdel Muttalib to discuss the negotiations that were held with the Ethiopian side, which rejected all Egyptian suggestions.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
