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The three counties will hold more talks about the disputed dam this month after previous negotiations failed to reach an agreement.
Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia agreed on Sunday to hold further talks this month to resolve their long-standing dispute over Addis Ababa’s massive dam on the Blue Nile, Sudan’s water ministry said.
Previous tripartite talks failed to reach agreement on the filling and operation of the vast reservoir behind the 145-meter (475-foot) high Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), a hydroelectric project that began construction in 2011.
On Sunday, the three countries held a new round of videoconference talks in the virtual presence of South African officials, as well as other international observers. South Africa currently holds the rotating presidency of the African Union.
“The meeting concluded … that this week will be devoted to bilateral talks between the three countries, experts and observers,” Sudan’s Water Ministry said in a statement.
The talks this week will pave the way “for the resumption of tripartite negotiations on Sunday, January 10, with the hope of concluding by the end of January,” he said.
Negotiations have focused on the filling and operation of the giant dam.
Key questions remain about how much water Ethiopia will release downstream if a multi-year drought occurs and how the three countries will resolve any future disputes. Ethiopia has rejected binding arbitration in the final stage of the project.
Egypt, which relies on the Nile for about 97 percent of its irrigation and drinking water, fears that the Ethiopian dam will drastically reduce its share of water.
Sudan, which boycotted the talks in November, urging the African Union to play a bigger role in reaching a deal, hopes the dam will help alleviate the floods, but also warned that millions of lives would be at “great risk” if no binding agreement was reached. reached.
Ethiopia says that the hydroelectric power produced at the dam is vital to meeting the energy needs of its population and insists that downstream countries’ water supplies will not be affected.
The Nile, the longest river in the world, is a lifeline that supplies water and electricity to the 10 countries it crosses.
Its main tributaries, the White Nile and the Blue Nile, converge at Sudan’s capital Khartoum before flowing north through Egypt to the Mediterranean Sea.
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