KSA move to appease Ethiopia over dam criticism
Deputy Defence Minister’s comments provoke outrage from Ethiopian government
The Grand Renaissance Dam project was targeted by Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Defence Minister.
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The Saudi Arabian government has made an official statement rebuffing recent remarks made by the Kingdom’s Deputy Defence Minister against the construction of Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam.
Speaking at a session of the Arab Water Council in Cairo in February, Khalid Bin Sultan said that the Horn of Africa nation posed a national security threat to Sudan and Egypt by building the massive $4.8 billion hydro-powered dam along the Blue Nile, near the Sudanese border.
He added that the Ethiopia power plant project was ‘intended for political plotting, rather than for economic gain.” The remarks caused the Ethiopian government to react with anger and summon the Saudi Arabian Ambassador to Ethiopia for an official explanation.
Addis Ababa also said that the hostile tone of the remarks could negatively affect existing diplomatic ties between Arabs and the other Nile basin countries.
The Saudi Ambassador was quick to decry Sultan’s comments and insisted that they were not representative of the Saudi Arabian government’s views. The Kingdom’s Foreign Ministry echoed the Ambassador’s explanation, releasing a statement that said the Deputy Defence Minister’s comments “do not reflect the official stance of the Government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”
The Ethiopian government was assured that the Nile dam project would not affect historic relations between the two countries, which dated back to the First Hijira, when the Ethiopian monarchy gave shelter to the family of Prophet Mohammed and his followers who faced persecution on the Saudi peninsular at the beginning of the seventh century.
Despite strong protests from downstream countries of Sudan and Egypt – who argued dam would reduce the flow of the water to their territories – Ethiopia launched construction on Africa’s biggest dam in March 2011.
An official from the ministry of Water and Energy told Sudan Tribune on Friday that 18% of the project has been completed. The official further said the plans set to complete the dam in 2016 are well on track.
Currently some 5,000 Ethiopian and over 100 foreign employees are engaged in the construction of the dam which will have hydro power processed electricity generation power of 6000 MW.
