Egyptian President Urges Ethiopia To Sign Binding Agreement On Renaissance Dams Operation

 Egypt's President, Abdel Fattah Sisi, urged the Ethiopian government to enter into a legally binding agreement on the filling and operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam at the the League of Arab States summit on Wednesday.

"We demand from the Ethiopian side to sign a legally binding agreement on filling and operating the Renaissance Dam," Sisi said addressing participants of the summit.

In his speech the Egyptian leader also urged Ethiopia to "demonstrate the good will" in relation to the dam.

Ethiopia has been undertaking the large-scale dam building project since 2012.

According to analysts, the launch of the dam will inevitably lead to water shortages in Sudan and Egypt, which located downstream the Nile. Since the beginning of construction three countries have held more than a dozen of talks for discussing the water use, however the contradictions remain. Relations between the countries severely deteriorated in summer 2020, after Ethiopia had started the first stage of filling the dam reservoir without preliminary agreements. On July19, Ethiopia reported the end of the second stage.