Egypt's Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif will hold talks on Monday with visiting Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga over Nile Basin Initiative after the signing of a new water-sharing treaty. Nazif and Odinga will discuss the situation after Kenya's joining the new agreement in Entebe, Uganda, Egypt's official Middle East News Agency (MENA) reported Saturday. It added that Odinga is also expected to meet President Hosni Mubarak without giving details on the meeting. On Wednesday, Kenya became the fifth country to sign a new treaty - after Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda - for what is claimed to be an equitable sharing of river waters, despite strong opposition from Egypt and Sudan. "Odinga's talks in Cairo will also focus on the cooperation between his country and Egypt," MENA added. Egypt is leading a diplomatic flurry that will see several African leaders in Cairo in the coming weeks seeking to contain the region's water-sharing crisis. On May 29, Congolese President Joseph Kabila is due to visit Egypt and in June Burundi President Pierre Nkurunziza is also expected in Cairo, MENA said. Also in June, Egyptian Minister of Agriculture Amin Abaza and Investment Minister Mahmoud Mohieddin will head to Ethiopia and Uganda for talks with officials there, MENA said. 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. Under a 1959 agreement between Egypt and Sudan, they get the lion's share of the water flow. 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.
