Ethiopia refused to negotiate with Hosni Mubarak’s regime over the Nile water issue, believing that no one could stop it from pursuing its projects on the river’s source, according to declassified British documents.

The documents also reveal that the UK had predicted, 36 years ago, that Egypt would face water shortages throughout the remainder of the 21st century due to the “improbability of an agreement” among the nine Nile Basin states regarding water distribution.

In February 1988, Egypt, Sudan, Uganda, and Zaire signed an agreement to establish an international committee on drought and Nile waters. British officials considered this an encouraging move, but a limited one. Their assessment described the agreement as a “very small step” since it excluded key states in the basin “especially Ethiopia”, which contributes 86 per cent of the Nile’s main flow from its highlands. The UK emphasised the need for a “comprehensive   programme” for the development of entire basin.

Documents obtained by MEMO from the National Archives show that the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) believed that, despite improvements in Egypt-Ethiopia relations at the time, Egypt “had not been able to convince the Ethiopians to engage in dialogue” over Nile water issues.

In April 1989, British hydrological experts working in the Middle East and North Africa told the FCO that Ethiopia viewed its Blue Nile projects as unstoppable. This belief, they said, explained Ethiopia’s reluctance to join talks on Nile water management.

During a meeting with Anthony Gregory Shapland, head of the FCO’s Middle East Research Department,........

© Middle East Monitor