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10:52 pm
Saturday 21 November 2020
Books – Ahmed Massad:
Today, Saturday, the Sudanese government announced its withdrawal from the Renaissance dam negotiations, announcing that it would not participate in today’s next meetings.
The Sudanese government agreed to their demands at last Thursday’s meeting, which is the six-party meeting of the Foreign and Water Ministers of Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia, which was held under the chairmanship of the South African Foreign Minister. , whose country holds the current presidency of the African Union. Discuss the course of the ongoing negotiations on the “Renaissance Dam” under the auspices of Africa.
Both Sameh Shoukry, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Dr. Mohamed Abdel Aty, Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation, participated in the meeting, where Egypt highlighted the importance of resuming negotiations to accelerate the achievement of a legally binding agreement on the rules for the filling and operation of the Renaissance Dam.
Dr. Mohamed Nasr Allam, former Minister of Irrigation, said that the Sudanese Minister of Irrigation is moving away from Egyptian-Sudanese cooperation in all fields, noting that this matter affects the fate of the negotiations and places Ethiopia in a good position during the negotiations.
Allam added to “Masrawy” that Sudan’s Irrigation Minister’s view on the impact of the Roseires Dam in Sudan is just an insightful view of the dangers of Ethiopia’s Great Renaissance Dam, noting that Khartoum’s position serves to the interests of Ethiopia and turns Egypt into a state that “refuses to negotiate”.
He continued: “It is necessary to unify the concepts between the two countries to develop a single strategy in the negotiations, to face this dam that takes away the rights of the two countries.”
Dr. Abbas al-Sharaqi, head of the natural resources department at the Institute for African Studies at Cairo University, said the Sudanese side did not withdraw from the Renaissance dam negotiations, as some had imagined, but that the The Sudanese government endorsed its earlier proposal to grant a new role to the African Union-appointed observers, noting that Sudan believes that the chair of the meeting, represented by the South African Foreign Minister, approved the continuation of the talks by a period of 10 days. This confirms that the negotiations have returned to zero point.
Al-Sharaqi added to “Masrawy” that the differences have returned due to Ethiopian intransigence and evasion, explaining that we are trying to agree on a negotiation methodology, and if we succeed, we will begin to negotiate the true technical and legal points of the dam, that become more and more complex as the days go by.
The head of the Department of Natural Resources of the Institute of African Studies warned that Ethiopia could complicate the situation and turn it into an external conflict, in order to distract Ethiopians from what is happening at home, and promote an external threat to unite the internal ranks, as did the former Ethiopian prime minister at the start of the Great Renaissance Dam crisis in 2011.
Al-Sharraqi indicated that it is clear that the African Union cannot solve the problems of Cairo such as the Renaissance dam, and before Libya, South Sudan, Somalia, Kenya and Eritrea with Ethiopia, Western Sahara (Morocco), the Central African Republic and Boko Haram in Nigeria, and currently the crisis in the Tigray region. In Ethiopia.
Khartoum had presented its vision during the tripartite meeting, which was held earlier this month, which boils down to “abandoning the former unproductive form of negotiation and changing it to other more effective approaches, giving the experts of the African Union a more important role. important to facilitate the reduction of the gap between the three parties. “
Dr. Diaa Al-Qusi, former adviser to the Minister of Irrigation, said that it is understandable to prolong negotiations when there are technical or legal disputes, but what cannot be understood is that the disagreement is in the handling of negotiation methods, and this it is the worst scenario, indicating that repeatedly postponing the negotiations demolishes the credibility of the negotiation and configures very worrying scenarios.
Al-Qusi explained to “Masrawy” that the African Union must be decisive and establish a clear timetable for the progress of the negotiation process, highlighting that Egypt does not reject the Sudanese proposal, but supports it in the framework of expressing visions and including international observers to ensure neutrality.
The former adviser to the Minister of Irrigation pointed out that the Ethiopian side is the one that benefits from prolonging the negotiations, in order to avoid the existence of a mechanism to implement all the decisions resulting from the mini-summit, and is subject to a deadline for the implementation of the same, such as the agreement of the ministers to establish a mechanism to participate in the operation of the Renaissance Dam, within a week with the presence of Another legal dispute resolution mechanism.
Ethiopia began construction of the Renaissance dam on the Blue Nile in 2011, and Egypt fears the impact of the dam on its portion of water, which amounts to 55.5 billion cubic meters annually, most of it coming from the Blue Nile.
Despite the signing of a declaration of principles between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia on the issue of the Renaissance Dam in March 2015, which adopted dialogue and negotiation as a way to reach an agreement between the three countries on the issue of the waters of the Nile and the Renaissance Dam, the negotiations, of which Washington sponsored a stage thereof, did not result in an agreement. Since then.
