Sudan on Tuesday refused to sign agreements that will enable Ethiopia to start filling the waters of its $4.6 billion Renaissance Dam from July.
Sudan's Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok said he refused to sign the agreement with Ethiopia due to "technical and legal issues" bordering on the dam's environmental and social impacts.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi told the United Nations, UN, in 2019: "While we acknowledge Ethiopia's right to development, the water of the Nile is a question of life, a matter of existence for Egypt."
In spite of calls in Egypt for war if Ethiopia does not stop the construction, it is uncertain what a military reaction by Egypt will be, especially when both countries have no shared borders.
First, all sides need to accept that Ethiopia has a right to use the Nile waters for its development just as Egypt did in building its Aswan High Dam whose ten-year construction was completed in 1970.
