Cairo: Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi and Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn said on Thursday at talks in Cairo they were opposed to any “conflict” over the sharing of Nile waters.

Sisi said that Desalegn’s visit was “a clear sign for our peoples and the entire world of our political will and determination to overcome all obstacles” between the two countries.

The Nile should serve as “a source of cohesion... and development, not of conflict” with Ethiopia, which is building a controversial dam that has raised Egyptian concerns over water supplies, he said.

“We agreed that we must make sure that this great river never becomes an object of competition, mistrust and conflict,” Desalegn told a joint news conference.

Sisi said Ethiopia was not aiming “to harm the interests of Egypt,” while reiterating Cairo’s call for the World Bank to serve as a neutral interlocutor between the two countries on technical issues related to the Nile.

Egypt relies almost totally on the Nile for irrigation and drinking water, and says it has “historic rights” to the river, guaranteed by treaties from 1929 and 1959.

Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam project on the Blue Nile, launched in 2012, is designed to feed a hydroelectric project to produce 6,000 megawatts of power, equal to six nuclear-powered plants.

Intelligence chief

Also during the day, Sisi fired his powerful intelligence chief, state media said, in the latest shake-up of the country’s security services.

Egyptian president appointed his chief-of-staff and close ally General Abbas Kamel as interim replacement for outgoing intelligence head General Khaled Fawzy, according to state media.

No reason was given for the move, which comes ahead of presidential elections to be held in March.

Sisi has not yet officially declared himself a candidate, but he is widely expected to stand and win.

In October Sisi named a new armed forces chief of staff and announced changes in key security positions after at least 16 police officers were killed in the Western Desert some 200 kilometres southwest of Cairo.

Kamel, like Fawzy, keeps a low public profile.