A closed session between the highest media council in Egypt and the negotiating team on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam ended, on Tuesday, the inauguration of a committee to address internal and external public opinion on the dam.
According to a statement by the Supreme Council for Media Regulation in Egypt, the Council held a closed session in the presence of senior journalists and media figures in addition to the Egyptian negotiating team and Minister of Irrigation Mohamed Abdel-Ati, on the developments of the Nile water issue and the Renaissance Dam.
The statement indicated that the Minister of Irrigation, who heads the technical negotiating team, expressed his regret at what he described as the delay in the negotiation process and the efforts to waste time on the part of Ethiopia, which is about to start the second filling of the dam lake, despite the continuous objections from Egypt and Sudan.
The meeting agreed to form a permanent committee for media communication and follow-up on the water file and the Renaissance Dam from the Ministry and the Council, and this committee aims to raise awareness of the water issue and rationalize consumption, present the fairness of the Egyptian position on the issue of the Renaissance Dam and address the public opinion internally and externally.
Persistence and fears
The announcement of the formation of the committee came in conjunction with the issuance of a hashtag bearing the name of the Renaissance Dam in the first place with the most popular hashtags on Twitter in Egypt, and tweets most of which discuss Ethiopia's new declaration on adhering to the second filling of the dam, and the Egyptians ’fears of completing that.
On Tuesday, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, in a speech to Parliament, renewed his country's insistence on continuing to fill the dam in a way that does not harm the interests of Egypt and Sudan.
Ethiopia insists on filling the dam with water next July, even if it does not reach an agreement with Cairo and Khartoum, while the latter two adhere to first reaching a tripartite agreement, in order to preserve their annual share of the Nile water and their water facilities.
A few days ago, Ethiopia rejected a Sudanese proposal, supported by Egypt, to form a quadripartite international mediation, which includes the United Nations, the United States, the European and African Union, to solve the stalled negotiations over a period of 10 years.