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Sudan will withdraw from the current round of negotiations with Ethiopia and Egypt over the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) unless a mediation body has been established, according to Sudan’s Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources.
The announcement was made yesterday by the Minister of Irrigation, Yasir Abbas, after the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Irrigation of Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia held two meetings of ambassadors, chaired by Naledi Pandor, president of the Executive Council of the African Union (AU). ) and Minister of International Relations of South Africa.
On November 4, the Ministers of Water Resources of the three countries agreed to return the file to the AU office of the head of state and government, after months of stagnation. However, South Africa, the president of the AU, rejected the request.
Sudan then reiterated the demand to return the file to the AU, to strengthen the role of the mediators and support the Sudanese negotiating position to reach a satisfactory and binding agreement on the first filling and operation of the dam.
The three countries also failed to agree broadly on the role that the AU, the EU and the US can play in ending the eight-year trilateral talks on the presentation of GERD.
Negotiations will continue for the next ten days, despite Sudan’s refusal to continue until its demands are met.
Sudan affirmed its support for the negotiation process under the auspices of the AU during the meeting, as a means to reach a binding agreement that satisfies all parties. Abbas recommended a new methodology that gives a greater role to AU mediators, to bridge the gap between the opinions of the three countries. However, “Egypt and Ethiopia insist on continuing negotiations with proven methods that reached a dead end in the past,” the statement said.
Abbas considers this to be a procedural violation, according to the statement. He said that “continuing negotiations is futile and has been tried repeatedly in the past without any progress.”
History of GERD
In March 2011, Ethiopia announced its plans to build a large dam on the Blue Nile, in the Benishangul-Gumuz region, some 15 to 40 kilometers east of the border with Sudan, as a jointly owned and operated project between the three. countries. Egypt and Sudan vehemently opposed the proposal. They claimed adverse effects on their rights and interests over the Nile water.
Later, Khartoum softened its position. Cairo, however, has warned that Ethiopia will not be able to unilaterally fill the dam without consequences.
Egypt depends on the Nile for more than 90 percent of its water. The Blue Nile contributes about 85 percent of the volume of the main Nile River.
In March 2015, countries signed a Declaration of Principles in Khartoum as the basis for the negotiations, but since then no progress has been made in the use of the waters of the Nile.
Addis Ababa began filling the reservoir in August, after repeatedly indicating that, even without an agreement, it would. This sparked new speculation about whether the three countries will be able to find common ground.
The GERD, when completed in 2022, will have a reservoir with a volume of more than 74 billion cubic meters and a hydroelectric generation capacity of 6,450 megawatts.
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