Confidence being rebuilt between Egypt, Ethiopia

Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Hossam Moghazi praised the positive results of his recent visit to Ethiopia to discuss the Renaissance Dam file.
The trip was a complete success and has helped, to a great extent, in rebuilding confidence between Egypt and Ethiopia, he told a news conference Wednesday night.
He said that the Ethiopia talks which involved Egyptian, Ethiopian and Sudanese water experts and officials led to an agreement on a general framework for the implementation of the roadmap concerning the Ethiopian dam. This would ease the work of a 12-member committee and help it to finish its studies on the dam and meet the set six- month deadline which ends late March next year, he added.
He said the Ethiopian side has promised to allow the Egyptian experts to visit the dam at any time they want and to provide them with all information about the design and construction plans for this dam and others.
He underlined the importance of the coming trilateral committee meeting that will be hosted in Cairo on October 20-21 to agree on the consultancy group that will be tasked with completing the studies connected with the dam.
When asked about Egypt's stand after reports have been circulated about Ethiopian plans to build more dams, he said that, in principle, Egypt is not against any dam projects by any of the Nile Basin countries, provided that the purpose of these projects is to generate electricity and so long as Egypt's historical Nile water rights are threatened.