Khartoum - Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir said on Thursday that the construction of Ethiopia's controversial Grand Renaissance Dam on the Nile River would not impact water supplies to Egypt as feared by Cairo. Egypt, which is almost totally reliant on the Nile for agriculture and drinking water, says it has "historic rights" to the Nile guaranteed by treaties from 1929 and 1959. The Blue and the White Nile rivers converge in Khartoum and from there run north into Egypt as the Nile. Bashir said Khartoum too had concerns initially about the safety of the dam, which when complete will be the largest in Africa. "If anything happens to the dam, it will be crisis for Sudan because of the huge amount of water the dam will be storing," said Bashir.

Source: Ethiopian News August 17, 2017 15:45 UTC