Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan exchanged on Tuesday proposals on formulating a “unified draft” that would lead to an agreement to regulate the rules for filling and operating the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).
The African Union-sponsored talks will continue until August 28, in an attempt to resolve outstanding issues.
For nearly a decade, talks among the three countries over the operation and filling of the mega-dam, which Addis Ababa is constructing on the Nile River and raises Egyptian and Sudanese concerns, have faltered.
Tuesday’s meeting was attended by Cairo, Addis Ababa and Khartoum’s ministers of water resources, observers from the European Union and United States and experts from the AU Commission.
Sudan revealed differences among the three countries over the interpretation of procedures for unifying their drafts on a final deal, which was mentioned in the South African Foreign Ministry’s report.
According to a statement by Sudan’s Irrigation Ministry, the three countries exchanged proposals for the final text of the agreement. It pointed out that they chose both “legal and technical representatives from each country to participate in the merging of the three texts.”
Sudanese Irrigation Minister Yasser Abbas presented proposals for the measures that will be followed during the current round of talks. The statement said the three countries will work to merge their proposals into a unified agreement and hand over a joint project to the AU Chief and South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa.
The tripartite meetings will continue Wednesday.
Sudan’s negotiating delegation stressed during a meeting Sunday the importance of returning to the agenda set by Ramaphosa in early August and the experts' report submitted to the mini-African summit held in July.
The meeting is based on the outcomes of the July 21 mini-summit and Sunday’s joint six-party meeting between the ministers of water resources and irrigation and the ministers of foreign affairs from Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia.
The AU is seeking to formulate a unified draft that includes proposals of the three countries, despite the wide differences between Ethiopia’s demands on one hand, and those of Egypt and Sudan on the other, sources told Asharq Al-Awsat.
Cairo fears the potential negative impact of GERD on the flow of its annual share of the Nile’s 55.5 billion cubic meters of water, while Addis Ababa says the dam is not aimed at harming Egypt or Sudan’s interests, stressing that the main objective is to generate electricity to support its development.
