If the Red Sea Is Not a Shared Concern, How Can the Abbay Be a Shared River?

Addis Ababa, October 7, 2026 (FMC) — There is a revealing contradiction at the heart of the latest geopolitical positioning around the Red Sea and the Abbay: when geography serves their interests, certain governments invoke it as an absolute principle; when it does not, they simply set it aside.

Ethiopia’s position has never been that geography gives it exclusive ownership of a regional sea or that the Abbay belongs to Ethiopia alone. Its position is considerably simpler: countries whose security, economy and strategic interests are directly affected by developments in a region cannot be arbitrarily excluded from discussions about that region.

That principle becomes particularly difficult to dispute in Ethiopia’s case.

Ethiopia lies only about 60 kilometres from the Red Sea at its closest point. Its economy, trade routes, logistics, energy security and national security are directly affected by what happens in and around the Red Sea. Armed attacks, maritime insecurity, disruptions to shipping and the strategic competition of major powers in the Red Sea corridor do not stop at an imaginary line drawn around the coast.

Yet a recent declaration issued by the leaders of Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia, referred to as the Al-Alamein Declaration, reportedly advanced an exclusionary proposition: that countries without a coastline on the Red Sea are not part of its affairs.

If that principle is to be taken seriously, however, it immediately raises a question that its proponents appear unwilling to confront.

If the Red Sea is not a shared concern, how can the Abbay be a shared river?

The contradiction is difficult to overlook.

The same regional actors who insist that only littoral states should have a say in Red Sea affairs have repeatedly asserted that the Abbay is a shared resource whose management concerns them.

But geography does not change according to political convenience.

If physical proximity to a body of water is the determining criterion for political and strategic relevance, then Ethiopia’s proximity to the Red Sea must matter.

If being downstream gives a country a legitimate stake in the Abbay, then being the principal source of its waters gives Ethiopia an equally undeniable stake in its development and management.

The double standard becomes even more striking when the two questions are placed side by side.

Ethiopia is being told that because it does not possess a Red Sea coastline, it should have no meaningful place in determining the future of a maritime corridor whose security and economic functioning directly affect its national interests.

At the same time, Egypt—a country from whose territory the Abbay does not originate—is among the strongest voices insisting that Ethiopia’s use and development of the river must be subject to the interests and approval of downstream states.

That is not a coherent application of geography. It is geography being selectively deployed as a geopolitical instrument.

For decades, Egypt has sought to preserve a dominant position over the Abbay waters, even though the overwhelming majority of the Nile’s flow originates outside Egyptian territory.

Ethiopia, by contrast, has consistently maintained that the Abbay is a transboundary resource whose development should be pursued through equitable and mutually beneficial use, without causing significant harm to downstream countries.

This distinction matters.

Ethiopia has never based its position on the argument that the Abbay belongs exclusively to Ethiopia and that downstream countries have no legitimate interests.

Rather, it has pursued the development of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam within a framework of shared benefit, while repeatedly asserting the rights of upstream countries to development.

The principle is straightforward: shared resources require shared interests, mutual respect and equitable arrangements—not unilateral ownership of the rules by one side.

That principle should apply to the Red Sea as well.

If Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia believe that the Red Sea’s security is a matter exclusively for coastal states, they are entitled to advance that political position.

But they cannot simultaneously expect Ethiopia to accept that its vital national interests can be discussed, constrained or determined by others whenever the subject is the Abbay.

A regional order built on such selective principles is not a rules-based order. It is an order in which rules are invoked when convenient and discarded when inconvenient.

And that is where the issue moves beyond the Red Sea and the Abbay.

Ethiopia’s growing engagement with the Red Sea is part of a broader national agenda centred on economic transformation, regional integration, trade connectivity and sovereign access to vital international corridors.

For a country of more than 100 million people situated at the heart of the Horn of Africa, permanent dependence on the goodwill of others for access to global maritime trade is neither a sustainable economic arrangement nor a neutral geopolitical question.

Ethiopia has repeatedly stated that it seeks access through peaceful, negotiated and mutually beneficial arrangements. That position is fundamentally different from demanding the exclusion of other states from their legitimate interests.

The irony is that those demanding the exclusion of Ethiopia from Red Sea affairs frequently present themselves as defenders of regional stability and cooperation.

But regional cooperation cannot mean one set of principles for Ethiopia and another for its neighbours.

It cannot mean that Ethiopia’s legitimate interests become a threat whenever they concern the Red Sea, while the interests of downstream states become unquestionable whenever they concern the Abbay.

Nor can regional security be reduced to the interests of those fortunate enough to possess a coastline.

The Red Sea is a major international maritime corridor. Its security affects trade, energy, food security, logistics and national security far beyond its immediate shores. Ethiopia’s economic and strategic exposure to the corridor is therefore a reality of geography and geopolitics—not a matter that can be erased through a political declaration.

The same logic applies to the Abbay.

Ethiopia is the principal source of the river’s waters. Its right to develop its resources cannot reasonably be dismissed while the interests of downstream countries are elevated into an exclusive veto over upstream development.

What Ethiopia has been asking for is not domination of the Red Sea and not exclusive control of the Abbay. It is consistency.

If the principle is cooperation, let cooperation apply to both.

If the principle is equitable use, let it apply to both.

If the principle is respect for the legitimate interests of states, let it apply to both.

And if geography is the argument, then geography must not be rewritten whenever the political interests of one country demand it.

The emerging contest is therefore not merely over water or maritime access. It is also a contest over the principles that will govern the Horn of Africa: exclusion or cooperation; inherited privilege or equitable partnership; unilateral dictates or negotiated arrangements.

Ethiopia has made its choice clear. It continues to advocate peace, dialogue and mutually beneficial regional cooperation. But peaceful diplomacy should never be confused with surrendering fundamental national interests.

The central question remains impossible to avoid:

If Ethiopia can be told that the Red Sea is not its concern because it does not share the coastline, on what consistent principle can Ethiopia be told that the Abbay is everybody’s concern despite being the principal source of its waters?

The answer cannot be determined by political convenience.

A credible regional order requires one standard—and that standard must apply equally to all.