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The virtual meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Ministers of Water Affairs of Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan was held on January 3, 2021.
The meeting was convened by the Minister of International Relations and Cooperation of the Republic of South Africa and President of the Executive Council of the AU.
The Ministers exchanged views on the continuation of the trilateral negotiation, focusing on a draft document presented by the experts appointed by the President of the African Union. Ethiopia expressed its positive attitude towards the draft document and expressed its willingness to use it as a single working document for trilateral negotiation.
Similarly, Sudan conveyed the importance of the document for the progress of the negotiation and its willingness to proceed with the negotiation with a defined role of the AU experts. Egypt categorically rejected the document.
Most of the issues on the first annual filling and operation of the GERD are agreed. The main difference lies in the correlations between the GERD Guidelines and Standards and future water development projects in the Abbay Basin.
The GERD is a non-consumptive hydroelectric generation dam. Any deal on the dam, which is being negotiated in the absence of a comprehensive water treaty and the prevalence of an unfair status-quo, will need to take into account these fundamental factors. Ethiopia will not agree to a GERD agreement that in any way restricts its right to use the waters of the Nile.
On this basis, Ethiopia undertakes to conclude the negotiation in good faith to reach an agreement. Consequently, Ethiopia sent alternative approaches to Egypt and Sudan, which is expected to get their answer in the affirmative.
In the next week, trilateral meetings at the level of experts will continue with the supervision of the ministers of water affairs, to take stock of the agreed and pending issues that will be presented to the meeting of six ministers that is expected to be held on Sunday 10 January. 2021.
