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Sudan boycotted talks on Saturday between the Nile Valley countries on Ethiopia’s controversial mega-dam, calling on the African Union to play a bigger role in advancing negotiations that have stalled for years.
It was the first time that Sudan refused to attend talks with Ethiopia and its northern neighbor Egypt, which has for years voiced its fear that the Ethiopian Grand Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile would dramatically threaten the water supply downstream.
Sudan’s Irrigation Minister Yasser Abbas said in a statement that the current approach to reaching a tripartite agreement on the filling and operation of the Ethiopian dam has not yielded results, and that the AU should do more to “facilitate the negotiation and closing the gap between the three parties.
The boycott of Sudan, however, could derail the complicated talks, which the AU has already taken the lead role in supporting.
On Thursday, the foreign and irrigation ministers of the three Nile Valley countries met online, two weeks after they failed to agree on a new framework for the negotiations.
There were no immediate comments from South Africa, which leads the African Union, Egypt or Ethiopia, on Sudan’s decision on Saturday. It was not clear when the negotiations would restart.
Africa’s largest hydroelectric dam has sparked serious tensions with Egypt, calling it an existential threat and worrying it will reduce the country’s share of the Nile waters.
Ethiopia says the $ 4.6 billion dam will be an engine of development lifting millions out of poverty. Sudan, in the middle, worries about the effects on its own dams, although it could benefit from access to cheap electricity.
Key questions remain about how much water Ethiopia will release downstream if a multi-year drought occurs and how the three countries will resolve any future disputes. Ethiopia has rejected binding arbitration in the final stage of the project.
In addition to tensions with its Nile Valley neighbors, Ethiopia was plunged into deadly internal conflict earlier this month when its federal government launched a military attack on the administration of the northern region of Tigray.
The conflict threatens to draw in Ethiopia’s neighbors, which include Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea, whose capital was hit with rockets by Tigray’s forces over the weekend. The fighting has sent more than 35,500 Ethiopian refugees to Sudan.
Ethiopia rejected a U.S. draft agreement on its dam in February and continued with the first stage of filling the dam’s massive reservoir, prompting Washington to suspend millions of dollars in aid to Addis Ababa.
