Egyptian leader Mohammad Mursi warned that all options were open to Cairo in confronting an Ethiopian project to build a dam on the Blue Nile, which may diminish Egypt’s water supply.

Egyptian leader Mohammad Mursi warned that all options were open to Cairo in confronting an Ethiopian project to build a dam on the Blue Nile, which may diminish Egypt's water supply.

"I confirm that all options are open to deal with this subject," Mursi told hundreds of his supporters late Monday at a conference on the issue.

"If a single drop of the Nile is lost, our blood will be the alternative," he said, in his strongest warning yet on the dam project.
"We are not warmongers, but we will never allow anyone to threaten our security," he added.

A Mursi adviser said last week that Egypt would demand Ethiopia halt construction of the dam.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Kamel Amr would travel to Ethiopia "in the coming days" to "present the Egyptian point of view," Prime Minister Hisham Qandil said on Monday.

"Water is a question of life and death for the Egyptian people. Water is a matter of national security," Qandil added.

Ethiopia has begun diverting the Blue Nile some 500 meters from its natural course to construct the dam.

Cairo said it opposed any project that affected the flow of the river downstream.
The Blue Nile joins the White Nile in the Sudanese capital Khartoum to form the Nile, which then flows through Egypt.