On 23 April 2019, Ethiopia’s Ministry of Water, Irrigation and Energy told Ezega it was not worried that political change in Sudan would disrupt Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam negotiations.
The reassurance came as Khartoum’s transition looked chaotic and GERD remained the Horn’s hardest water bargain, with Egypt watching every statement. Official calm is itself a diplomatic instrument.
Abiy Ahmed’s early years mixed dam nationalism with regional peacemaker branding. Saying Sudan’s street politics would not touch the dam was meant to freeze the technical track while governments shook.
For Nile geopolitics readers, the quote is a timestamp. GERD timelines slipped, Sudan’s war later exploded, and the fiction that hydropolitics can ignore state collapse got harder to sell.
Sources: Ezega
