Sudan Slams Ethiopia Move at Controversial Nile Dam

Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed speaks during the first power generation ceremony at the site of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) in Guba, Ethiopia, on February 20, 2022. (Getty Images)
Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed speaks during the first power generation ceremony at the site of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) in Guba, Ethiopia, on February 20, 2022. (Getty Images)
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Sudan Slams Ethiopia Move at Controversial Nile Dam

Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed speaks during the first power generation ceremony at the site of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) in Guba, Ethiopia, on February 20, 2022. (Getty Images)
Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed speaks during the first power generation ceremony at the site of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) in Guba, Ethiopia, on February 20, 2022. (Getty Images)

Sudan has condemned neighboring Ethiopia for launching power generation at a controversial dam on the Blue Nile without the agreement of downstream nations, saying the "unilateral move" violated international commitments.

Sudan "has emphasized its rejection of all unilateral measures with regard to filling and operation" of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, the spokesman for its negotiating team, Omar Kamel, said in a statement late Monday.

He said the Ethiopian move was a "fundamental breach" of its commitments under international law.

The other downstream nation, Egypt, which has been bitterly opposed to the dam project ever since construction started more than a decade ago, has also sharply criticized Ethiopia for starting up the turbines on Sunday.

Multiple rounds of talks between the three governments since 2011 have failed to produce agreement on its operation.

The two downstream nations had also pushed for an agreement on the filling of the dam's reservoir, but Ethiopia went ahead without one in 2020.

Addis Ababa regards the dam project -- which will be Africa's largest when complete -- as essential to the development of Africa's second most populous country.

Egypt, which depends on the Nile for about 97 percent of its irrigation and drinking water, sees the dam as an existential threat.

Sudan hopes the project will regulate annual flooding, but fears its own dams will be harmed without agreement on its operation.



Israeli Likud Party Ministers Urge Netanyahu to Annex West Bank

Israeli soldiers in Tubas in the north of the occupied West Bank on September 11, 2024. (AFP)
Israeli soldiers in Tubas in the north of the occupied West Bank on September 11, 2024. (AFP)
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Israeli Likud Party Ministers Urge Netanyahu to Annex West Bank

Israeli soldiers in Tubas in the north of the occupied West Bank on September 11, 2024. (AFP)
Israeli soldiers in Tubas in the north of the occupied West Bank on September 11, 2024. (AFP)

Cabinet ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party called on Wednesday for Israel to annex the Israeli-occupied West Bank before the Knesset recesses at the end of the month.

They issued a petition ahead of Netanyahu's meeting next week with US President Donald Trump, where discussions are expected to center on a potential 60-day Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas.

The petition was signed by 15 cabinet ministers and Amir Ohana, speaker of the Knesset, Israel's parliament.

There was no immediate response from the prime minister's office. Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, long a confidant of Netanyahu, did not sign the petition. He has been in Washington since Monday for talks on Iran and Gaza.

"We ministers and members of Knesset call for applying Israeli sovereignty and law immediately on Judea and Samaria," they wrote, using the biblical names for the West Bank captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

Their petition cited Israel's recent achievements against both Iran and Iran's allies and the opportunity afforded by the strategic partnership with the US and support of Trump.

It said the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel demonstrated that the concept of Jewish settlement blocs alongside the establishment of a Palestinian state poses an existential threat to Israel.

"The task must be completed, the existential threat removed from within, and another massacre in the heart of the country must be prevented," the petition stated.

Most countries regard Jewish settlements in the West Bank, many of which cut off Palestinian communities from one another, as a violation of international law.

With each advance of Israeli settlements and roads, the West Bank becomes more fractured, further undermining prospects for a contiguous land on which Palestinians could build a sovereign state long envisaged in Middle East peacemaking.

Israel's pro-settler politicians have been emboldened by the return to the White House of Trump, who has proposed Palestinians leave Gaza, a suggestion widely condemned across the Middle East and beyond.