Egypt accepts US invitation for dam talks

CAIRO - Egypt said on Tuesday that it had accepted a US invitation to a meeting of foreign ministers over a project for a giant hydropower dam on Ethiopia's Blue Nile that is causing an escalating spat between the two African countries.

The meeting of foreign ministers of Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan, the three nations directly affected by the project, will be held in Washington, Egypt's Foreign Ministry said, without stating a date or if the other nations had agreed.

"Egypt has received an invitation from the US administration, ... an invitation that Egypt immediately accepted," the ministry said in a statement.

Egypt is worried that the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, under construction near Ethiopia's border with Sudan, will restrict supplies of already scarce Nile waters on which it is almost entirely dependent.

After years of three-way talks with Ethiopia and Sudan, it says it has exhausted efforts to reach a pact on conditions for operating the dam and filling the reservoir behind.

Ethiopia says the dam is crucial to its economic development and has denied that the talks between the three are stalled, accusing Egypt of trying to sidestep the process.

Ethiopia will not be stopped from building the dam, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said on Tuesday. The $5 billion dam will be the largest in Africa. It is around 70 percent complete and is expected to provide much-needed electricity to Ethiopia's 100 million people.

Egypt, with a similar population, fears the dam will reduce its share of the river and leave the country with dwindling options as it seeks to protect its main source of freshwater.

Abiy, who won the Nobel prize this month for his peacemaking efforts with longtime enemy Eritrea, also raised the prospect of conflict over the dam, saying: "If we are going to war ... we can deploy many millions. But war is not a solution."

Egypt criticized the comments as "unacceptable".

"Egypt ... expressed its shock, great concern and deep regret over comments conveyed by the media and attributed to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed," the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is expected to meet Abiy during a Russia-Africa summit in Russia this week. Egypt had earlier suggested bringing in an outside party, possibly the World Bank or the US, to mediate the dispute.

Agencies