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KHARTOUM, Nov.26 (Xinhua) – Sudan’s Sovereign Council Chairman Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan said Thursday that Sudan’s national interest will be the sole benchmark for negotiating the disputed Great Renaissance Dam of Ethiopia (GERD).
Al-Burhan made the remarks when meeting with Sudan’s Minister of Irrigation and Water Resources Yasir Abbas, also head of the Sudanese delegation at the GERD talks, the sovereign council said in a statement.
Al-Burhan has expressed support for the negotiating delegation’s decision not to attend the tripartite negotiations on the GERD scheduled for November 21, he added.
Sudan demands a bigger role for the experts of the African Union (AU) to reduce the difference of views of the three affected countries.
Sudanese negotiators believe that the GERD talks should go beyond the level of the irrigation ministers and refer to the AU and the leaders of the three countries to provide political will to bring their positions closer together.
The Sudanese delegation also calls for AU and US observers to be granted mediator status, a move that Egypt and Ethiopia appear not to be interested in.
The delegation further insists that the negotiation be conducted on the points of difference rather than all the issues and on the basis of the Declaration of Principles signed in 2015 regarding GERD.
Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia have been holding talks, under the auspices of the AU, on technical and legal issues related to the filling and operation of the GERD.
Ethiopia, which began building the GERD in 2011, expects to produce more than 6,000 megawatts of electricity from the project, while Egypt and Sudan, countries downstream of the Nile basin that depend on the river for fresh water, are concerned about that the dam may affect its share of water resources. Final product
