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December 23, 2020
Egypt’s Foreign Ministry on December 17 condemned an Ethiopian cross-border attack on Sudanese military troops near Sudan’s border with Ethiopia. The ministry called the attack an “unwarranted assault.”
“Egypt reiterates its full solidarity with brother Sudan and affirms its support for the country’s right to protect its security and sovereignty over its territory,” the ministry said in a statement.
The statement continued: “Egypt is following these dangerous events on the ground with great concern … and underlines the need to take all possible measures to ensure that such incidents against Sudan are not repeated in the future.”
The Sudanese army said on December 15 that a military patrol was ambushed by Ethiopian forces and militias in the Jabal Abutiour region of al-Qadarif province in eastern Sudan. The Sudanese military did not say how many soldiers were killed or injured, but local media put the death toll at four and said a dozen more were injured.
The attack was the most recent result of the internal conflict that broke out in Ethiopia in November between federal forces and regional authorities in the northern region of Tigray. The conflict has sent tens of thousands of Ethiopian refugees to Sudan to flee the violence in Tigray.
Following the December 15 attack, Khartoum deployed large military reinforcements in al-Qadarif to claim territories controlled by Ethiopian militias and farmers. The head of the ruling Sovereign Council of Sudan, General Abdel-Fattah Burhan, traveled to the area and spent three days overseeing the deployment of troops there.
Egypt and Sudan, two downstream countries, are embroiled in a dispute with Ethiopia over a gigantic hydroelectric dam that Addis Ababa is building on the Blue Nile, from which 85% of the Nile’s water comes.
Cairo fears that the Ethiopian dam will reduce its annual stake in the Nile River, Egypt’s only source of fresh water. Meanwhile, Khartoum believes that the dam can help Sudan generate electricity and regulate the water of the Blue Nile, but wants assurances about the safe and proper operation of the dam to preserve its own dams. African Union-sponsored negotiations between the three nations to reach an agreement on the project have yielded no results.
Sudan boycotted the latest round of Nile dam negotiations on November 21, demanding a change in the methodology of the negotiations to achieve a breakthrough in the tripartite talks.
Hassan Abu Taleb, an expert at the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, said he believes Egypt’s support for Sudan on the border issue was not related to the stalemate in the Nile dam talks.
“Egypt reiterated its support for the right of a sister country to protect its border and territory against any foreign assault,” Abu Taleb told Al-Monitor by phone.
He said the Egyptian statement condemning the Ethiopian attack was aimed at underscoring Egypt’s rejection of any assault on the territory of friendly countries on the one hand, and supporting Sudan in countering threats to its security on the other.
Downplaying the impact of the border attack on relations between Ethiopia and Sudan, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia Abiy ahmed said the incident will not break the link between the two countries. “We always use dialogue to solve problems. Those who stoke discord clearly do not understand the strength of our historical ties, ”Ahmed tweeted on December 17.
Abu Taleb noted that Sudan was the party that boycotted the Nile Dam negotiations due to the failure of the African Union-sponsored talks to make a breakthrough. “Egypt still sees the negotiations as the only way to reach a binding agreement that serves the interests of the three countries,” Abu Taleb said.
Major General Gamal Mazloum, a military expert and adviser to the Nasser High Military Academy, agreed with Abu Taleb that the Egyptian condemnation of Ethiopia’s attack on Sudanese troops was not related to the current stalemate in the Nile Dam talks.
“Sudan constitutes a strategic depth for Egypt and any attack on Sudan represents a threat to Egypt’s national security,” Mazloum told Al-Monitor. “It is natural for Egypt to support Sudan’s right to defend its territory against any attack given the deep-rooted relations between the two countries.”
Mazloum noted that Ethiopia was unable to maintain tight security along its border with Sudan. The two countries share a 1,600-kilometer-long (almost 1,000-mile) border.
“For years, Ethiopian farmers have encroached on farmland and cultivated land in Sudan,” he said. “Sudan has the full right to reclaim these lands from Ethiopian farmers.”
Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok met with his Ethiopian counterpart in Djibouti on December 20 on the sidelines of a summit of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, an East African regional bloc comprising eight countries. Officials from the two countries met in Khartoum on December 22 to discuss the demarcation of their borders.
Mazloum said Egypt’s relations with Sudan have seen a big leap after the removal of the Omar al-Bashir regime last year. “Egypt provides military training to the Sudanese in the Egyptian military academies,” he said. The military expert added that Sudanese forces participated in a joint military exercise in Egypt in November, along with forces from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Bahrain.
On November 14, the Egyptian and Sudanese air forces carried out joint exercises called Nile Eagles-1. Cairo and Khartoum also signed a cooperation agreement for military industrialization on November 20.
Three weeks earlier, a high-ranking Egyptian military delegation, led by the army’s chief of staff, Lieutenant General Mohammed Farid Hegazy, visited Khartoum on October 31. Following a meeting with his Sudanese counterpart, Mohamed Osman al-Hussein, Hegazy told a joint press conference that military relations between the two countries would reach a qualitative boom in the next period of time.
Sudanese Ambassador to Egypt Mohamed Elias said on December 21 that Khartoum and Cairo were seeking to establish a strategic partnership between the two countries. During a training session for religious preachers in Cairo, he said: “Egypt and Sudan are capable of building a bloc that can help achieve security, well-being and stability for both countries.”
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