Egypt's ties with the Nile Basin countries are characterized by understanding and a spirit of cooperation, and are witnessing their best times, according to Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Mahmoud Abu Zeid.
He was quoted by the Cairo-based Al Ahram as saying that the countries on the banks of the famous river were working on studies for 22 projects, funded by the donor countries, at a cost of $220 million.
The minister assailed those "who pound the drums of war," calling them parties "concerned only with bringing about instability and tension in the area so as to lower the level of development and make the poor poorer."
He said that Egypt rejected such calls, because prosperity and stability in the Nile Basin reflected positively on the Arab country.
Ministers and senior government officials from the ten Nile Basin countries met in late June with donors and development agencies for the first-ever International Consortium for Cooperation on the Nile (ICCON) in Geneva.
The consortium is envisaged as a broad partnership between and among the Nile riparian states and the international community, according to a World Bank statement obtained by Albawaba.com at the time.
The Nile Basin Initiative (NBI), launched in 1999, is an undertaking of the ten Nile riparian countries - Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.
The division of the Nile waters raises controversial issues from time to time, as one or another country undertakes new dam projects - Albawaba.com
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