For the second day, Nile basin countries study an agreement to share water
Egypt-Regional, Politics, 3/8/2004

The second round of negotiations aiming at finding a new agreement for the Nile Basin countries started yesterday in Uganda.

The Egyptian minister of irrigation and water resources, Muhammad Abdul Halim Abu Zeid, renewed his country's cling to its position aiming at negotiating over what he called Egypt's historical rights to use the waters of the Nile. He called on the countries of the Nile basin to concentrate on benefiting from the waste water instead of raising the issue of shares.

Several Nile basin countries including Tanzania and Kenya hope to review the agreements of 1929 over sharing waters of the Nile that Britain had signed on behalf of its colonies in East Africa then. These agreements give Egypt the right of " veto" on any water projects that will affect the average flow of the water of the Nile.

The agreements of 1929 were completed by a Sudanese- Egyptian agreement in 1959 giving Egypt the right to invest 55 billion cubic meters of waters out of 83 billion cubic meters reaching Sudan to have thereby the share of this country 18 billion cubic meters of the Nile waters. The other amounts go wasted.

The Nile basin initiative which was launched in 1999 includes 10 African countries which are Burundi, Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania. So far there is no comprehensive agreement between the countries of the 10 Nile states which organize the use of its water.

However, the Nile is composed of two tributaries which are the White Nile which is fed by Victoria Lake and the Blue Nile which constitutes 85% of the waters of the river and is fed by the Ethiopian hill.

Previous Stories:
  Nile Basin agreement prohibits selling transport water   (4/7/2003)
  No Israeli water projects in Nile Basin   (7/13/2002)
  Wali says Ethiopia not build any dams on Nile   (2/16/2002)
  Irrigation Minister: Nile water,only for its Basin countries   (10/25/2001)
  Ministerial meeting to partition Nile water   (5/12/1999)

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