CAIRO — Egypt said Friday that Ethiopia has consistently lacked the political will to reach a binding agreement on its now-complete dam, an issue that involves Nile River water rights and the interests of Egypt and Sudan.
Ethiopia's prime minister said Thursday that the country's power-generating dam, known as the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, on the Nile is now complete and that the government is ''preparing for its official inauguration'' in September.
Egypt has long opposed the construction of the dam, because it would reduce the country's share of Nile River waters, which it almost entirely relies on for agriculture and to serve its more than 100 million people.
The more than the $4 billion dam on the Blue Nile near the Sudan border began producing power in 2022. It's expected to eventually produce more than 6,000 megawatts of electricity — double Ethiopia's current output.
Ethiopia and Egypt have spent years trying to reach an agreement over the dam, which Ethiopia began building in 2011. At one point, tensions ran so high that some feared the dispute would escalate to war.
Both countries reached no deal despite negotiations over 13 years, and it remains unclear how much water Ethiopia will release downstream in case of a drought.
Egyptian officials, in a statement, called the completion of the dam ''unlawful'' and said that it violates international law, reflecting ''an Ethiopian approach driven by an ideology that seeks to impose water hegemony'' instead of equal partnership.
''Egypt firmly rejects Ethiopia's continued policy of imposing a fait accompli through unilateral actions concerning the Nile River, which is an international shared watercourse,'' Egypt's Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation said in a statement Friday.
