With our correspondent in Addis Ababa, Noé Hochet-Bodin

Ethiopia will carry out the second phase of filling the Renaissance dam reservoir this summer, during the rainy season, with or without an agreement.

This statement by Ethiopia's Water Minister last week adds more fuel to the fire of regional tensions with its two downstream Nile neighbors.

Indeed, Sudan and Egypt want to negotiate at all costs a common mechanism for controlling the waters of the Nile, for fear of seeing its flow decrease, and with it all their agricultural activities. A sign of tensions, Khartoum and Cairo have just signed a military cooperation treaty.

Regarding negotiations, Ethiopia firmly rejects Sudan's request to use four mediators; the United States, the European Union, the UN and the African Union.