Addis Ababa — Former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Tibor Nagy rejected the repeated assertions by Cairo and Asmara that only coastal nations possess jurisdiction over Red Sea maritime security and governance.
Ambassador Nagy contended that if Egypt and Eritrea maintain that solely littoral states should govern the Red Sea, then logically, only countries contributing water to the Nile would have the right to determine its usage.
The former US diplomat and academic stated, “If as Egypt and Eritrea assert that only littoral states have any say regarding the Red Sea, then logically only nations that feed water into the Nile can dictate its use.”
His remarks challenge downstream riparian nations’ strategy of influencing upstream water projects while concurrently attempting to bar non-coastal states from participating in Red Sea maritime security discussions.
This perspective emerges during continuous negotiations concerning sovereign maritime access for landlocked Horn of Africa nations and the equitable utilization of transboundary water resources across the Nile Basin.