Addis Ababa – Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said on Thursday that his government will not seek conflict with Eritrea over access to the Red Sea, following warnings from regional officials and experts about the risk of potential war between the two countries.
In a post by his office on the X platform, Abiy Ahmed stated, “Ethiopia has no intention of entering into conflict with Eritrea for the purpose of gaining access to the sea” and that “the Renaissance Dam will not harm downstream countries and will ensure year-round water flow once completed.”
He added that although access to the Red Sea is an existential issue for landlocked Ethiopia, his government wants to address the matter peacefully through dialogue.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed told parliament, “In the next six months, we will cut the ribbon together,” without delving into further details.
He affirmed, “The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will be a historic event at the beginning of the next Ethiopian year.”
Ethiopia began generating electricity from the $4.2 billion project, located in the northwest of the country 30 kilometers from the border with Sudan, in February 2022.
At full capacity, this massive dam, which extends 1.8 kilometers and is 145 meters high, with a capacity of up to 74 billion cubic meters of water, can generate more than 5000 megawatts of power.
This will make it the largest hydroelectric dam in Africa, more than doubling Ethiopia’s current production.
A human rights group said fears of war erupted in recent weeks after Eritrea issued an order for nationwide military mobilization. Diplomatic sources and officials told Reuters that Ethiopia deployed forces towards the border.
Any renewal of clashes between two of Africa’s largest armies would end a historic rapprochement for which Abiy Ahmed won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 and risk a humanitarian disaster in a region already suffering from the fallout of the war in Sudan.
During this rapprochement, Eritrea supported Ethiopian federal forces during a civil war between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front and the central government between 2020 and 2022, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands.
However, disagreements between the two neighbors resurfaced after Eritrea was excluded from talks to end that war in November 2022.
Tensions increased between Ethiopia, Egypt, and Sudan due to failure to reach an agreement on the Renaissance Dam, a crisis that was brought before the UN Security Council.
It’s worth noting that Ethiopia began constructing the Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile in 2011, while Egypt warns of harm to its water share.
Al-Yara’a / Reuters / AFP
