The commander of the Ethiopian Air Force, General Yilma Mardisa, said that his country is capable of preventing any attack on the Renaissance Dam, which is in dispute with both Sudan and Egypt.

In a statement to the official Ethiopian News Agency, Mardisa confirmed that his country's air force possesses a sophisticated and sophisticated force.

He revealed that his forces are monitoring the airspace near the Renaissance Dam, and that the area is under tight surveillance, and approaching the airspace of the dam is not allowed.

Last March, Mardisa confirmed his country's readiness for any attack, in the context of an escalation in the Ethiopian media following the withdrawal of Addis Ababa from negotiations with Egypt and Sudan under American auspices, confirming its right to the Nile waters, and that there is no force preventing it from exploiting its resources in development, which is What Cairo rejected and considered an unjustified escalation.

In turn, the Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed expressed last Friday his hope for a conclusion in the negotiations of the Renaissance Dam with the two downstream countries, Egypt and Sudan.

During the public debate session at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Abiy Ahmed said that the Renaissance Dam aims to preserve the water resources of Ethiopia, which were evaporating in the downstream countries.

He denied that the purpose of constructing the dam is to harm any country, stressing that what Ethiopia is seeking is to meet the needs of its citizens of electricity and clean energy.

He added: We cannot afford to keep more than 65 million Ethiopians in the dark, referring to the electricity that Ethiopia is seeking to obtain from the construction of the dam.

He said that we are guided here by acceptable and equitable principles, and we have commitments that were clearly expressed in the Declaration of Principles signed with Egypt and Sudan in March 2015.

However, I would like to emphasize our commitment to address the concerns of downstream countries, and to reach a conclusion regarding negotiations.

On July 21, the African Union held a mini-summit with the participation of the three countries, about a week after the conclusion of negotiations sponsored by the Union for about 10 days without an agreement, and the summit resulted in a renewed call for new tripartite negotiations.

Cairo is concerned about the potential negative impact of the dam on the flow of its annual share of the Nile water, which amounts to 55.5 billion cubic meters, while Sudan gets 18.5 billion.

For its part, Addis Ababa says it does not aim to harm Egypt's interests, and that the aim of building the dam is primarily to generate electricity.

Pictures obtained by Al-Jazeera showed the overall shape of the dam reservoir lake after the first filling was completed last July.

Satellite images captured on August 12th showed an increase in the water area along about 90 km along the course of the Blue Nile.

According to the analysis figures and measurements of the images, the total area of ​​the lake doubled 5 times after filling, to reach 255 square kilometers with a capacity estimated at more than 5 billion cubic meters.