“But contrary to the cliche ‘the importance of the visit is the visit itself,'” he says, nearly quoting Peri verbatim, “it would seem that Sissi decided to open a public diplomatic channel with Israel, at the end of which he’s likely to invite Netanyahu for a visit to Cairo. Because Egypt and Israel have joint interests, only some of which are in the defense department.”

Neamin Ashenafi of The Reporter sat down with the ambassador [Mohammed Idris] at the Egyptian Embassy to discuss a range of issues including the Nile, his work here in Addis Ababa, the expansion of the New Suez Canal and other pertinent issues. 

A collective of musicians from 11 Nile basin countries performed in New York City on Thursday night in a bid to demonstrate the need for cross-border cooperation — and to encourage people in Nile nations to think of themselves as more of a unified entity — as the region inches toward conflict over rights to water from the world’s longest river.

A long-simmering water conflict between Ethiopia and Egypt has moved a step closer to resolution, after the countries' foreign ministers announced last week they had reached a preliminary agreement on sharing Nile water.

The Ethiopian Public diplomacy team has achieved its objectives. The Egyptian President Al-Sisi said, Ethiopia has every right to development and utilization of the Nile Waters.

On the occasion, Speaker of the House of People's Representatives, Honorable Abadula Gemeda said, "Ethiopia and Egypt have very long standing historical, religious, cultural and social relations." (...) He stressed the point that Ethiopia and Egypt need to foster cooperation in areas including education, trade, tourism and investment.

Ethiopia and Egypt are in the middle of diplomatic rapprochement to narrow their differences over the construction of a multi-billion hydroelectric dam on the Nile.

Ethiopia's decision to begin diverting the course of the Blue Nile (the largest of the Nile river’s branches), as a prelude to the construction of the Renaissance Dam, put Egyptian diplomacy in a difficult position and stirred fears over Cairo’s declining share in the Nile waters, but the Egyptian presidency managed to tame these fears.