CAIRO — The Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the Ethiopian chargé d'affaires to Cairo Dec. 30 to clarify statements by Dina Mufti, the spokesperson of the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs who criticized the human rights situation in Egypt.

This is the first time in more than four years that Egypt has summoned the Ethiopian chargé d’affaires, a move observers believe may increase tensions amid the stalled negotiations on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) and the escalating border tensions between Sudan and Ethiopia. 

Mufti said in a Dec. 29 press conference, “Egypt has turned Ethiopia into a [danger zone] to escape its own internal problems, as there are tens of thousands of Islamists inside prisons in Egypt. … It is using such matters to avoid internal Egyptian issues and focus its attention on the GERD.”

In a strongly worded press statement Dec. 31, Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ahmed Hafez condemned Mufti’s statements as “a blatant transgression and outright unacceptable, in addition to a flagrant infringement of the commitments enshrined in the Constitutive Act of the African Union.”