Senior Egyptian officials Thursday started talks in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum amid a diplomatic flurry that will see several African leaders in Cairo in the coming weeks seeking to contain the region's water-sharing crisis. Mohamed Nasr Eddin Allam, Egypt's Minister for Water Resources and Irrigation, flew to Sudan late Wednesday for talks on Nile water sharing after five upstream countries signed a deal that Cairo and Khartoum rejected. Allam, accompanied by senior Foreign Ministry officials, discussed with his Sudanese counterpart Kamal Ali, "ways for both countries to maintain their rights (to Nile water) based on international agreements". Under a 1959 agreement between Egypt and Sudan, they get the lion's share of the water flow. Meanwhile, Ethiopia's Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said Egypt's approach to the distribution of the Nile was "out of date". He said that Egypt would not be able to stop his country from building dams on the river. "Some people in Egypt have old-fashioned ideas based on the assumption that the Nile water belongs to Egypt, and that Egypt has a right to decide who gets what, and that the upper [Nile Basin] countries are unable to use the Nile water because they will be unstable and they will be poor," he told the Qatari news TV Al-Jazeera. His comments came nearly a week after Ethiopia joined Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania in signing a new treaty on the equitable sharing of the Nile. Kenya became the fifth country to sign a new treaty late Wednesday, despite strong opposition from Egypt and Sudan. "These circumstances have changed and changed forever. Ethiopia is not unstable. Ethiopia is still poor, but it is able to cover the necessary resources to build whatever infrastructure and dams it wants on the Nile water." Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga is due in Egypt tomorrow for talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif. On May 29, Congolese President Joseph Kabila is due to visit Egypt and in June Burundi President Pierre Nkurunziza is also expected in Cairo. Also in June, Egyptian Minister of Agriculture Amin Abaza and Investment Minister Mahmoud Mohieddine will head to Ethiopia and Uganda for talks with officials there. Egypt has repeatedly claimed its "historic right" to the Nile water and threatened legal action to preserve its right to the water on which its 80 million people depend. The upstream countries want to be able to implement irrigation and hydropower projects in consultation with Egypt and Sudan, but without Egypt being able to exercise the veto power it was given by a 1929 colonial-era treaty with Britain.
