Egypt's Grave Mistakes:  Rejecting Dialogue, Resorting to Threats

By Gezmu Edicha

In recent months, Egypt’s posture toward Ethiopia has hardened into open rejection of dialogue, accompanied by threats and inflammatory rhetoric. What might appear as diplomatic friction on the surface hides a deeper and more troubling reality. Egypt is clinging to a colonial era mindset that sees the Nile as private property rather than a shared African resource. This outdated belief has driven Cairo to pursue policies that undermine cooperation and instead breed instability in the Horn of Africa.

Ethiopia, by contrast, continues to speak the language of partnership. Time and again, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has stressed that if Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt choose cooperation over confrontation, they could together form a bloc of nearly 300 million people. A combined market of that scale, rich in water, fertile land, strategic location and young manpower, could become one of the most dynamic economic corridors in Africa. Agriculture, energy, trade and industry could flourish for the benefit of all.

For generations, the Nile has been a river of life, memory and shared destiny. Most of it originating from the green highlands of Ethiopia, the river flows through Sudan and ends in the Mediterranean after nourishing Egypt. Nature designed it as a shared gift. Politics, however, had turned it into a tool of domination.

Egypt has chosen to look backward instead of forward. Rather than embracing shared development, it continues to invoke colonial treaties that were drafted without the consent of African nations. Rather than engaging in sincere negotiations, it oscillates between delaying tactics and outright rejection of dialogue. Rather than working to stabilize the region, it pursues policies that strain relations and fuel suspicion.

Ethiopia’s position has remained clear and consistent. The Abbay River, which contributes the vast majority of the Nile’s waters, originates within Ethiopian territory. International law recognizes the principle of fair and equitable utilization of shared rivers. No nation has a monopoly over transboundary waters. No nation has the right to veto the development of another.

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam stands today as a symbol of that belief. It is not a weapon, it is an instrument of light, industry, and national dignity. For Ethiopians, GERD is not merely concrete and turbines. It represents the right to rise, to electrify villages, to power factories and to lift millions from darkness into opportunity. It also offers Sudan and Egypt regulated flow, reduced sedimentation and flood control. The benefits are real and measurable.

Still, Egypt persists in treating Ethiopia’s development as a threat instead of an opportunity. It rejects technical solutions, dismisses African-led mediation efforts and frames the issue as a zero sum struggle. This approach reflects not confidence, but insecurity. It reflects not leadership, but fear of change.

Ethiopia’s history tells a different story. This is a nation that stood uncolonized when the rest of the continent was carved up. It supported liberation movements across Africa when freedom was still a dream. Pan Africanism is not a slogan here, it is a lived legacy. That is why Ethiopians find it painful and perplexing when a fellow African state chooses the language of coercion over that of cooperation.

Prime Minister Abiy’s call for enhanced cooperation between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt is not rooted in weakness. It is rooted in vision. He has repeatedly said that the future of the Nile Basin must be built on integration, shared growth and mutual respect. Three nations standing together would not only guarantee water security, but also food security, energy security, and trade security for an entire region.

Egypt, however, continues to stand in yesterday.

The refusal to engage in dialogue is not just a diplomatic posture. It is a political choice that keeps the region hostage to an old world view of dominance and entitlement. It is also a choice that isolates Egypt itself from the emerging African frameworks of cooperation and collective growth.

What Africa needs today is not confrontation but coordination. What the Nile Basin needs is not threat but trust. What the next generation demands is not inherited rivalries but shared prosperity.

Ethiopia has kept its door open. It continues to call for talks, for African solutions and for win-win outcomes. It has shown restraint even when provoked. It has chosen development over destruction, light over darkness, dialogue over drums of conflict.

History will ultimately judge who worked for unity and who invested in division. The Nile will continue to flow long after today’s politicians are gone. The real question is whether it will flow through a region bound by cooperation or scarred by stubbornness.

Ethiopia has made its choice. It has chosen the future.