Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty told fellow Arab diplomats this week that the Nile River remains a top national priority for both Egypt and Sudan, stressing that any action affecting the two countries’ water interests remains unacceptable and must be handled strictly in accordance with international law. Abdelatty made the remarks during Egypt’s formal address to the one hundred sixty sixth regular session of the Arab League Council at the ministerial level, held in Cairo this week.
The foreign minister’s comments come against the backdrop of the long running dispute between Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, a massive hydroelectric project on the Blue Nile that Ethiopia formally inaugurated a year ago. Egypt has consistently argued that the dam’s operation without a binding agreement among all three countries poses a serious risk to its share of Nile water, since the country depends on the river for the vast majority of its agricultural and drinking water needs.
Beyond the water security issue, Abdelatty used his address to the Arab League Council to discuss a wider range of mounting regional tensions and security threats facing Arab states. He described the Middle East as currently experiencing rapidly developing crises that threaten the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and overall stability of several countries across the region, touching on subjects including the Palestinian issue and concerns around freedom of navigation through key regional waterways.
Egypt has long used platforms like the Arab League to build broader regional support for its position on Nile water rights, framing the issue not merely as a bilateral dispute with Ethiopia but as a matter touching on collective Arab national security given Sudan’s shared stake in the outcome. This approach reflects Cairo’s long standing diplomatic strategy of elevating what might otherwise be treated as a technical or bilateral water management issue into a broader regional political concern.
Sudan has historically expressed a somewhat more nuanced position on the dam dispute compared to Egypt, occasionally shifting its stance depending on the state of its own relations with Ethiopia and Egypt at different points over the years. Even so, both countries have generally found common ground in calling for a binding legal agreement governing how Ethiopia fills and operates the dam, particularly during periods of drought when reduced water flow could have severe consequences for downstream agriculture and drinking water supplies.
Ethiopia has consistently rejected what it characterizes as Egyptian and Arab League overreach on an issue it considers fundamentally a matter of national sovereignty and development. Ethiopian officials have repeatedly stressed the country’s right to use its own natural resources, including the Blue Nile, to meet the needs of its growing population, arguing that development of the dam represents an essential tool for lifting millions of Ethiopians out of poverty through expanded access to electricity.
The dispute carries significant stakes for regional stability well beyond the immediate parties involved. As the Arab world’s most populous nation, Egypt’s concerns about Nile water security resonate broadly across the region, particularly among countries that share Cairo’s interest in maintaining stable, predictable access to shared water resources amid growing pressure from climate change and population growth across the broader Middle East and North Africa.
As the Arab League Council session continues its deliberations in Cairo, attention will focus on whether member states issue any formal joint statement reinforcing Egypt and Sudan’s position on the Nile, and whether renewed diplomatic pressure might eventually help revive stalled technical negotiations between the three countries most directly involved. For now, Egypt’s foreign minister has made clear that water security remains firmly at the top of the country’s national priority list, even as it simultaneously navigates a complex and evolving set of regional security challenges.
