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KHARTOUM, Jan.4 (Xinhua) – Sudan has expressed reservations about participating in a ministerial meeting on the Great Renaissance Dam of Ethiopia (GERD) that was convened on Monday, Sudan’s Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources said.
“Based on the results of the tripartite ministerial meeting held on Sunday, Sudan requested the convening of a bilateral meeting with experts and observers from the African Union (AU) in the evening,” the ministry said in a statement.
Instead of a response to the request, Sudan received an invitation to continue direct tripartite talks, prompting him to announce reservations on participation, to show his firm position on the need to give a role to AU experts to facilitate negotiations and reduce the gap between the three parties, “he said.
The ministry further emphasized Sudan’s adherence to the negotiation process under the AU in accordance with the principle of “African solutions to African problems.”
On Sunday, Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia agreed to suspend tripartite talks on GERD for a week to resume on January 10.
The three countries have been negotiating under the auspices of the AU on technical and legal issues related to the filling and operation of the GERD.
Sudanese negotiators believe that the GERD talks should go beyond the level of the irrigation ministers and be referred to the AU and the leaders of the three countries to provide political will to bring their positions closer together.
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 Water Resources. Final product
