ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, June 12 (UPI) -- Ethiopia said it won't stop work on a dam across the Nile River that Egypt said would restrict water supply downstream.
The refusal came after the Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi pledged to defend the Nile "with our blood," a comment a spokesman for the Ethiopian prime minister called irresponsible, the British publication The Guardian reported Tuesday.
"Nothing is going to stop the Renaissance Dam. Not a threat will stop it," Getachew Reda told The Guardian in a telephone interview. "None of the concerns the Egyptian politicians are making are supported by science. Some of them border on what I would characterize as fortune-telling."
Ethiopian officials said they hope the dam will form Africa's largest hydropower plant. Egyptian authorities, however, have challenged its construction after a water expert said the dam would drastically lower the level of the Nile, which supplies nearly all of Egypt's water, and could reduce farmland as much as to 25 percent.
Ethiopia also disputes the Egyptian experts' conclusions, claiming the dam has been largely cleared of Egypt's claims by a recently completed but as-yet unreleased report by scientists from Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan.
In a speech to Islamic supporters Monday, Morsi called the Nile "God's gift to Egypt," and alternately called for peaceful dialogue and made veiled military threats, saying all responses would be considered, The Guardian said.
Last week, senior Egyptian politicians discussed more aggressive measures that could be taken against Ethiopia, apparently unaware their discussions were being broadcast live, The Guardian said.
