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“The tendency to invite various parties as mediators on the issue while the AU-led negotiation has not concluded is degrading the AU’s efforts,” an Ethiopian official said at a press conference in Addis Ababa today.
The statement was in response to calls from Sudan and Egypt to involve international mediation in the negotiations after the failure of previous talks held under the auspices of the AU.
Ethiopian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Dina Mufti told Wednesday’s conference that Addis Ababa believes the AU-supervised negotiations will bring a “win-win solution” for all parties.
Mufti added that “the description of some parties as if Ethiopia has postponed the ongoing negotiation is also unfounded,” adding that “we have been negotiating in good faith.”
Over the past year, the AU, under the presidency of South Africa, tried in vain to help the three countries reach an agreement on the long-running dispute, with the latest round stalling in January due to Khartoum’s withdrawal from the meetings in objection. to the methodology on which the conversations had been developed.
Efforts to relaunch the talks were renewed with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) chairing the AU in February. The Democratic Republic of the Congo held meetings with the three parties in recent days to discuss the issue.
Last week, Khartoum proposed to a delegation from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, current president of the African Union, to develop the methodology of the negotiations by forming a quartet committee to mediate the talks under the supervision of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
During a meeting with his Sudanese counterpart Mariam Al-Saddiq Al-Mahdi in Cairo on Tuesday, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry announced that Egypt supports the international mediation proposal.
The proposed mediation involves representatives from the United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU) and the United States (US) together with the AU.
Both Egypt and Sudan have expressed their serious desire to negotiate, calling on Ethiopia to show good faith and resume talks before the second presentation of the dam.
Mufti also said that Ethiopia believes it has the right to use its water resources without significantly damaging downstream countries, in accordance with international law and the principles of fair and equitable use of water resources.
Egypt and Sudan have consistently expressed support for Ethiopia’s right to use the hydroelectric project in their development efforts, but have repeatedly sought a legally binding agreement on the rules for filling and operating the dam, a step that has been repeatedly dodged or rejected by Ethiopia.
However, Egypt fears that the project will significantly reduce its crucial supplies of water from the Nile River, while Sudan is concerned about how the reservoir will be managed.
Downstream countries said that “unilaterally” from the second filling it would pose a direct threat to the riparian security of Egypt and Sudan and would represent a “substantial violation” of the Declaration of Principles (Dop) signed between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan in 2015 .
The DoP states that the three countries must agree on guidelines and rules for the dam’s operating processes before the reservoir is filled.
Last year, Addis Ababa announced that it had completed the initial fill with 4.9 billion cubic meters of Blue Nile water in the GERD reservoir, while announcing plans to embark on the second fill phase during the August rainy season. 2021 with 18,400 million cubic meters. of water.
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