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Sudan announced on Saturday that it has rejected participation in Saturday’s ministerial meeting on the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).
The announcement came in a message sent by Sudan’s Minister of Irrigation and Water Resources, Yasser Abbas, to his Ethiopian counterpart, Seleshi Bekele.
Abbas stressed that Sudan’s position calls for giving a greater role to experts from the African Union (AU) to facilitate negotiation between the three parties, and that current negotiation methods so far have proven to be “useless.”
The message affirmed Sudan’s adherence to the negotiation process under the auspices of the AU to reach a binding legal agreement satisfactory to all three parties, in line with the principle of “African solutions to African problems”.
Last Thursday, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Egypt, Sameh Shoukry, and the Minister of Irrigation and Water Resources, Mohamed Abdel-Ati, participated in the Meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Water to six parties in Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia .
The meeting was held under the chairmanship of the South African Foreign Minister, whose country holds the current chairmanship of the AU, to discuss the course of the ongoing negotiations on GERD under African auspices.
During the meeting, Egypt highlighted the importance of resuming negotiations to reach a binding legal agreement as soon as possible on the filling and operation of the dam, in line with the decisions of the AU Bureau meetings at the summit level. that were carried out in the past. months.
Egypt expressed its aspiration to participate in the next round of negotiations to be held over the next few days, in order to reach a fair and balanced agreement that achieves the common interests of the three countries and preserves their water rights.
Egypt and Ethiopia have been in multiple rounds of negotiations over the dam over the past nine years, all of which have failed to reach a final agreement.
Egypt has blamed Ethiopia for the failure of the talks, saying Addis Ababa shows no flexibility on the issue and is trying to avoid a binding deal.
Egypt, which relies heavily on fresh water from the Nile, has expressed fear that GERD will adversely affect the country’s water supply, especially in light of fears of overpopulation, and has insisted that measures be taken to protect the downstream countries in case of drought. during the filling process of the dam.
Ethiopia, for its part, has highlighted the importance of the project to boost its economy, where more than half of the population currently lives without access to electricity.
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