CAIRO – Egypt's Mahmoud el-Sherif, the head of Al-Ashraaf community, was named chairman of the Nile Basin Countries Council Organisation, Al-Youm Al-Sabie website reported on Tuesday. The Al-Ashraaf are people, who believe that they are descendants of Prophet Mohamed (PBUH). El-Sherif declared that popular delegations representing Al-Ashraaf, Al-Azhar, Ministry of Waqfs, churches and the cultured elite will work on boosting relations with their counterparts of the Nile basin countries. Those delegations would seek to activate popular relations in coordination with the Egyptian Foreign Ministry and Egyptian embassies in the basin countries. The aim, as he was quoted as saying, is to secure Egypt's interests, its historic rights to nile water quota and restore the position of Egypt in Africa. El-Sherif reviewed with Foreign Minister Nabil el-Arabi on Monday the principles and objectives of the Nile Basin Countries Council which targets equality and integration among the Nile Basin countries, in addition to respecting agreements and charters signed by these countries. The Secretary General of the Nile Basin Council Ahmed Khairy pointed out that the council would cooperate with international organisations. He added that the council intends to establish a popular parliament of the basin countries as well as a common human resources market. A dispute over nile water quotas had erupted in 2009 and escalated in 20l0 between the upstream (Sudan and Egypt) and the downstream countries. However, following the toppling of the Mubarak's regime, Egyptian popular delegations headed to Ethiopia and Uganda where they managed to reach a compromising solution.
