By Trevor Hunnicutt
WASHINGTON, Jan 16 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump offered on Friday to mediate a dispute over Nile River waters between Egypt and Ethiopia.
"I am ready to restart U.S. mediation between Egypt and Ethiopia to responsibly resolve the question of 'The Nile Water Sharing' once and for all," he wrote to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in a letter that also was posted on Trump’s Truth Social account.
Addis Ababa's September 9 inauguration of its Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam has been a source of anger in Cairo, which is downstream on the Nile.
Ethiopia, the continent's second-most populous nation with more than 120 million people, sees the $5 billion dam on a tributary of the Nile as central to its economic ambitions.
Egypt says the dam violates international treaties and could cause both droughts and flooding, a claim Ethiopia rejects.
Trump has praised Sisi in the past, including during an October trip to Egypt to sign a deal related to the Gaza conflict. In public comments, Trump has echoed Cairo's concerns about the water issue.
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Ryan Patrick Jones, Editing by Bhargav Acharya, Sergio Non and Franklin Paul)
