Water flows over the two-thirds completed Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile downstream in Ethiopia. Fears have arisen in both Egypt and Sudan that the process of filling the reservoir behind the dam will severely curtail water supplies, prompting a flurry of bellicose rhetoric and intense diplomatic activity.
Recent comments by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed that he could "muster an army of a million men to defend the dam," if it were threatened, prompted an angry reaction from Egyptian officials. But Ahmed, who recently won the Nobel peace prize, emphasized that diplomacy is his preferred course of action.
He says that if any one of those involved in the talks fails [in forging a diplomatic solution], it will be a failure for all.