Egypt and Ethiopia start expelling diplomats 🇪🇹

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Egypt and Ethiopia spent this week throwing each other’s diplomats out of the country. It took a general’s accusation to get there, but the argument underneath it is the one about the dam, and that one is fifteen years old.

While that was happening, much of the African Union turned up on the north coast for Egypt’s first continental business forum. Egypt also put five past South Sudan without its captain, and the pound slid through EGP 52.

Let’s get into it.

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• Egypt and Ethiopia expel each other’s diplomats 🇪🇹

• Africa comes to New Alamein 🌍

• Egypt Forum 2026 opens its doors, and its website 🗳️

ETHIOPIA | THE NILE | THE HORN
EGYPT AND ETHIOPIA TENSIONS RISE

Egypt declared a counsellor at the Ethiopian embassy in Cairo persona non grata on Thursday, 1 October, giving him 48 hours to leave, after Ethiopia had done the same to an Egyptian diplomat in Addis Ababa. By Friday the African Union was publicly asking both to calm down. Fifteen years of argument about a dam have arrived somewhere new.

What set it off: Ethiopia’s army chief, Field Marshal Berhanu Jula, said the Tigray People’s Liberation Front and its allies could not sustain their campaign in the north without outside supplies, and named Egypt and Sudan among the suppliers. He offered no evidence. Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman Nader Zaki rejected the accusation without naming Ethiopia back, saying Egyptian policy rests on “respect for the sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of other states, along with a commitment to staying out of their internal affairs,” and that claims otherwise “had no basis in fact.” Sudan’s military dismissed the allegation too.

Then the expulsions: Ethiopia moved first, giving its Egyptian target 48 hours and publishing no reason. Egypt matched it within a day, invoking the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and also declining to give a reason; an Egyptian source called Addis Ababa’s move unfortunate and unjustified. Neither government has named the diplomats involved.

Eritrea left the building entirely: Ethiopia closed its embassy in Asmara and expelled ten Eritrean diplomats, calling them a direct threat to its national security. Eritrea responded by severing relations with Ethiopia altogether. Cairo, meanwhile, spent Wednesday offering Eritrea technical support and training, with Abdelatty encouraging Egyptian firms into Eritrean energy, industry, fisheries and pharmaceuticals.

The dam is still the subject: At an expanded meeting at Strategic Command headquarters on Tuesday, El-Sisi said Egypt would stay with diplomacy, but not at the expense of “Egypt’s existence and its people.” Abdelatty went further than Cairo usually does, calling water security “a matter of life or death” and ruling out any further dams or unilateral measures affecting Egypt’s share. He also said Egypt is in water poverty and needs to double its allocation rather than hold it steady, which is a bigger ask than Egypt normally makes in public.

And the AU stepped in: The Commission asked Egypt, Ethiopia and Eritrea to “exercise maximum restraint and refrain from actions or statements that could further escalate tensions,” and said it stood ready “to support de-escalation, dialogue, and the peaceful resolution of differences.” Note where that request landed: the AU Chairperson and the AU Commission Chairperson were both in Egypt this week, for the forum in the next section.

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NEW ALAMEIN | AFRICA | TRADE
AFRICA COMES TO NEW ALAMEIN

Egypt opened its first Alamein Africa Business Forum on Friday, with roughly 1,500 delegates on the north coast and the closing session due today. It is run with the African Union Commission, AUDA-NEPAD and Afreximbank, and the AU agreed back in February that New Alamein would host it every two years.

Who turned up: El-Sisi opened Saturday’s session alongside Burundi’s President Évariste Ndayishimiye, who currently chairs the African Union, AU Commission Chairperson Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, Afreximbank President George Elombi and AUDA-NEPAD chief executive Nardos Bekele-Thomas. The Nigerian industrialist Aliko Dangote gave a keynote. Afterwards the group toured an exhibition of African companies, startups and institutional pavilions.

The case Egypt is making: Planning Minister Ahmed Rostom put the continent’s economy at USD 3.6 trillion and its share of global trade at 1.5 percent, for roughly a fifth of the world’s population. He named three priorities: implementing the African free trade area properly, letting capital move freely between African countries, and spending on human capital. He cited a World Bank estimate that a working AfCFTA could lift real incomes by 7 to 9 percent by 2035. El-Sisi’s version of the problem was blunter: the African private sector generates more than 70 percent of the continent’s GDP, yet around 85 percent of its transactions happen outside Africa, and more than half of small and medium firms do not know what opportunities exist next door.

What actually got signed: Egypt’s El Araby Group and South Africa’s Malben Engineering agreed to build a joint automotive components platform, signed at the African Automotive Investment Forum alongside Industry Minister Khaled Hashem, Afreximbank and the AfCFTA Secretariat. A protocol establishing an Egyptian-South African Business Council went with it. No investment figures or production targets were disclosed for either.

The part to watch: Abdelatty is due to present an “Alamein Africa Forum Commitments Tracker” at the closing segment, meant to follow what was promised here. Forums of this kind generate communiqués easily and follow-through rarely, so the tracker is the one deliverable worth checking back on in six months. If it publishes, Egypt has something few African summits produce. If it does not, that will be its own answer.

And a stability argument: El-Sisi told the room that stability “is not a luxury but a fundamental pillar sought by investors, manufacturers and farmers.” Delivered in a week when Egypt was expelling Ethiopian diplomats and the AU was asking three of its members to stand down, the line carried more than the usual freight.

NATIONAL DIALOGUE | EGYPT | PARTICIPATION
EGYPT FORUM 2026 ANNOUNCED

El-Sisi announced Egypt Forum 2026 on Thursday, a national dialogue running from 19 to 24 October with preparatory sessions beforehand, and an official platform at egyptforum.gov.eg where people register, submit views and file proposals.

Who is being asked: The call went out to “all state institutions, experts, and Egyptian citizens across different backgrounds and orientations.” El-Sisi described the aim as bringing together a wide range of voices through academic and societal dialogue, and said participation and dialogue are central to building Egypt’s future.

What a registration page changes: Putting the entry point online lowers the cost of taking part for anyone outside Cairo or outside the usual invitation lists, which is the most concrete thing announced so far. It also means the proposals arrive in writing and in volume, and someone has to sort them.

What has not been said: The agenda. Who selects which proposals reach the sessions, and on what basis. Whether anything agreed in the room binds any ministry afterwards, or feeds into legislation, or is published in full. Those are the details that separate a dialogue from a consultation, and none of them were in Thursday’s announcement. With three weeks until it opens, there is time for them to be.