Egyptian officials have sought to reassure Turkey after Cairo signed a partial maritime delimitation deal with Greece, saying they had respected Ankara’s national security concerns while preparing the agreement, a senior Turkish official said.

Ethiopia has no problems with Egypt, issues between the two countries only arise when Cairo tries to monopolise Nile waters, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson has said.

Beginning today, Palestinians stranded on either side of the Egypt-Gaza border will be able to cross for three days in what is their first opportunity in months.

Sudan on Monday said that negotiations over Ethiopia’s massive and controversial dam construction on the Blue Nile have been postponed for a week.

Military escalation appears inevitable in the eastern Mediterranean after Turkey announced new seismic research activity Aug. 10 in contested areas overlapping with a maritime zone that its arch foes Egypt and Greece agreed on last week.

A number of former Egyptian members of parliament and opposition party members have signed an official denouncing the country’s maritime border agreement with Greece which was signed last week.

Ethiopia is carrying on with filling the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam reservoir, despite the lack of an agreement with the two downstream countries, Egypt and Sudan, threatening Cairo and Khartoum’s shares of the Nile water.

Egypt and Greece on Thursday signed a maritime deal that sets the sea boundary between the two countries and demarcates an exclusive economic zone for oil and gas drilling rights.

South Africa, the current mediator in a long-running feud over Ethiopia’s dam on the Blue Nile, on Thursday urged that talks should continue despite threats of suspension and walkout.

Egypt and Cyprus held talks on Wednesday plans to boost cooperation in developing gas infrastructure in the Eastern Mediterranean.