Egypt announced on Saturday that tripartite talks with Ethiopia and Sudan over the Renaissance Dam on the Nile River had reached a dead end due to the "intransigence" of Addis Ababa.
Ethiopia considers that the dam is a necessary need for it to achieve development and generate electric power, while Egypt and Sudan see it as a threat to their water resources.
Cairo fears the potential negative impact of the dam on its annual flow of 55.5 billion cubic meters of Nile water, while Sudan gets 18.5 billion.
As Addis Ababa says, it is not intended to harm Egypt's interests, and the aim of building the dam is mainly to generate electricity.
Mohamed El Sebaei, spokesman for the Egyptian Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, said he was not optimistic "to achieve any breakthrough or progress in the ongoing negotiations over the dam," in a press statement published on the ministry's Facebook page.
Al-Sibai attributed this to what he called "the intransigence of Ethiopia, which was evident during the meetings currently taking place between the ministers of water resources in Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia."
The strongly worded statement came after days of negotiations over the project, amid growing insistence to reach an agreement before Ethiopia began filling the dam reservoir due in July.
"The Ethiopian position is based on forcing Egypt and Sudan to either sign a document that makes them captive to Ethiopia's will, or to accept Ethiopia taking unilateral measures, such as starting to fill the Renaissance Dam without an agreement with my downstream country," he added.
The Deputy Chief of the Ethiopian Staff, Berhanu Gola, had said that his country would strongly defend itself and its interests in the Renaissance Dam. Berhanu demanded in press statements, Egypt not to adopt what he called the policy of wars in order for water to flow in the interests of the two countries.
He reiterated his country's refusal to negotiate sovereignty over the Renaissance Dam, and affirmed its right to benefit from its waters.
The Deputy Chief of Staff said that his country is capable of defending its interests and facing any threats, and described the Egyptian vision regarding the Renaissance Dam as troubled. He said that Cairo adopted the hostility policy of Ethiopia.
On Tuesday, talks between the water and irrigation ministers in Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan resumed after a four-month hiatus, with the participation of three observers from the United States, the European Union and South Africa.
After several failed rounds of negotiations, the United States and the World Bank sponsored talks starting in November 2019 aimed at reaching a comprehensive agreement, after a request from Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to his ally, US President Donald Trump.
The US Treasury urged Ethiopia to sign an agreement that Egypt supported and considered it "fair and balanced."
But Ethiopia denied reaching an agreement and accused Washington of being "non-diplomatic" and a differentiation between one party and the other.
The Ethiopian Ministry of Water criticized Egypt on Thursday for sending a letter to the UN Security Council in May, in which Ethiopia complained and said that filling and operating the dam "would endanger Egyptian water and food security".