CAIRO (Reuters) – Ethiopia told Sudan that news reports that it had begun to fill the reservoir of Ethiopia’s Great Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile were incorrect, Sudan’s foreign ministry said Thursday in a release.
FILE PHOTO: A sample satellite image shows a close-up view of the Ethiopian Renaissance Great Dam (GERD) and the Blue Nile River in Ethiopia on July 12, 2020. Satellite Image © 2020 Maxar Technologies via REUTERS / File Photo
Ethiopia’s chargé d’affaires in Khartoum also told a senior Sudan foreign ministry official at a meeting that his country had not closed the dam’s doors, the statement added.
Ethiopia’s Water Minister Seleshi Bekele said in televised comments on Wednesday, a transcript of which was released to Reuters by his office, that “the construction of the dam and the filling of water go hand in hand.”
“The filling of the dam does not need to wait until its completion,” he added.
However, the Sudanese statement quoted the Ethiopian envoy as saying that the minister “did not make the comments attributed to him yesterday about the start of the process of filling the dam.”
Addis Ababa is committed to continuing the African Union-sponsored talks with Sudan and Egypt on the dam, his envoy said.
Earlier this week, talks between the three nations to regulate the flow of water from the dam did not reach an agreement.
Sudan and Egypt fear that the $ 4 billion hydroelectric dam may cause water shortages in their own nations.
The project has raised concerns in Egypt that the waters of the Nile, which are already limited, will be further restricted. The Blue Nile is a tributary of the Nile from which Egypt derives 90% of its fresh water.
Egypt asked Ethiopia for urgent clarification on whether it had started filling the reservoir, the Foreign Ministry in Cairo said on Wednesday.
Omar Fahmy’s reports; Written by Mahmoud Mourad; Alison Williams and Giles Elgood Edition
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