CAIRO, March 3 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said that Ethiopia cannot start filling the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) until "an agreement is reached with the downstream countries."
"Egypt desires to see Ethiopia follow the path of negotiations," Shoukry said in an interview with the Egyptian TV Program "9 O'Clock PM" on Monday night.
"If Ethiopia fills the GERD without consensus among the participant parties, the filling will be considered as deviation from the negotiations path and will contradict with the rules of international law," Shoukry said.
He explained that Ethiopia had pledged in the Declaration of Principles, signed between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan in March 2015, not to start filling the dam until an agreement was reached on the operation rules.
He highlighted that no side, based on the rules of international law and the Declaration of Principles, is allowed to take unilateral decisions regarding transboundary rivers.
Ethiopia, an upstream Nile Basin country, started building its GERD in 2011 on the Blue Nile, while downstream Egypt is concerned that the dam might affect its 55.5-billion-cubic-meter annual share of Nile water.
Filling the reservoir, whose total capacity is 74 billion cubic meters, may take several years. Egypt seeks to prolong the period to avoid the negative effects of water shortage, which is a main point of their talks.
The GERD is expected to produce over 6,000 megawatts of electricity and become Africa's largest hydropower dam upon completion.
