Egypt on road to consolidate ties in East Africa

President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi to Juba may not have produced an agreement between the two countries on military and security cooperation but, in the assessment of Cairo, it succeeded in opening the door to significant advances in such cooperation.

“This was a very important visit. It was undertaken with the intention of sending a message, not just to the authorities in South Sudan, but also to the South Sudanese public and neighbouring African states, that Egypt is committed at the highest levels to promoting closer cooperation with its African neighbours,” said an Egyptian official.

Cairo, he added, will be reaching out to more countries in East Africa to consolidate ties. In Tanzania, it is already helping with the construction of the Julius Nyerere Dam and hydropower station, and last week Egypt conducted its first ever joint military drills with Sudan.

“For us, East Africa has always been an obvious zone of interest, and recently we have been working to upscale our cooperation there,” said the official.

There is a long list of challenges ahead that Cairo knows it will have to work on in order to consolidate its position in East Africa. They include the seemingly endless negotiations with Ethiopia and Sudan over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) which Addis Ababa is building over the Blue Nile and that Cairo worries will deplete Egypt’s already insufficient supply of fresh water.

No agreement was reached ahead of Ethiopia’s first filling of the reservoir during this year’s rainy season, and it looks unlikely that one is in reach before next July when Ethiopia has said it will commence a second, for more extensive filling.

Egyptian officials say a much stronger Egyptian presence in East Africa, especially in the form of strategic cooperation, is necessary to secure the backing of Nile Basin states for Egypt’s demand that the filling and operation of GERD respects the basic water interests of Egypt.

GERD has been high on the agenda of discussions that Egyptian officials have had with their East African counterparts, including the foreign minister of Eritrea who was in Egypt last month, and the senior South Sudanese officials whom Al-Sisi met earlier this week.

While Egyptian officials have declined to provide any details on the kind of support they have been receiving from the Nile Basin, they say things are moving in the right direction.

According to Cairo-based foreign diplomats who monitor developments in East Africa, Ethiopia is keeping a very close eye on the inroads Egypt is making.

This week Ethiopia denied reports that it had expelled South Sudan’s ambassador following Al-Sisi’s visit to Juba. Earlier this year Juba had to publicly assure Addis Ababa that it had not granted Egypt a military base in South Sudan.