The head of the Arab League mission to the United Nations, Ambassador Maged Abdel-Fattah, said that the second filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam may become a fait accompli.
In an interview with Al-Jazeera Mubasher, he added that water issues are developmental in the first place and are dealt with in the United Nations on this basis.
But when it comes to the fate of 150 million people in Sudan and Egypt, what do you expect from them? Do they sit still and wait until 13.5 billion cubic meters of water is taken from them, the water is closed to them, the crops dry up, and the people starve without finding anything to eat? The problem has many dimensions, political, security and economic.
Regarding the possibility of the Security Council returning the file to the African Union and returning to square one, Abdel-Fattah said, “It is possible for this to happen on the ground, and I believe that Egypt and Sudan have no objection to the continuation of negotiations, but these negotiations must be linked to a time limit and there will be An authority capable of stopping those who are intransigent in these negotiations.”
In response to a question, has the second filling become a fait accompli, Abdel Fattah said, “In terms of reality, this may be true, but on the other hand, the problem with Egypt and Sudan is not filling because they agreed in the Declaration of Principles that there should be filling, but the problem is filling. In the absence of a binding agreement on filling and operating, so that no one can open the lock at any moment, drowning Sudan and thirsting Egypt.
Regarding a disagreement in the Security Council and what Egypt and Sudan can do in the face of this scenario, Abdel-Fattah said, "This is a diplomatic battle, and if there are contradictory opinions within the Security Council, it will be decided by vote."
But the language of the decision will be negotiated with the concerned parties, and some parties may be forced to make concessions, but the final test is to resort to voting.
As for the time needed to reach the desired result and vote in the Security Council, Abdel-Fattah said, "I imagine that from now until the first week of next month, this issue must have been resolved or within this time frame within the next two weeks."
In response to a question, were the downstream countries late in taking this step, Abdel-Fattah said, "The two downstream countries have engaged in serious negotiations in good faith and have shown sufficient flexibility. Many agreements have been reached on the technical level, so that all that is left is to put them in the binding legal framework." .
"We still have hope that there will be a change or flexibility in the Ethiopian position after the elections that will lead to reaching an agreement," he added.