African Union-sponsored negotiations on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) have been stalled with a new postponement.
Egypt and Sudan haven’t yet announced any progress in the contentious issues, mainly the binding agreement on the dam’s filling and operation that Cairo and Khartoum seek to endorse. Addis Ababa, however, insists on discussing guidelines on the dam’s operation.
The results of Monday’s negotiations are still ambiguous. While Sudan confirmed its participation through a statement on its official news agency, Cairo hasn’t yet announced its position on resuming negotiations that were suspended last week.
This comes in light of Egyptian and Sudanese rejection of an Ethiopian proposal on the dam’s filling and operation, considering it contrary to the African Union Bureau Summit agreement concluded in July.
“A meeting at the level of ministers of the three countries took place on Monday, during which Sudan asked to postpone the next meeting for one week for internal consultations,” Sudan’s Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources said in a statement.
This request comes in line with the recent developments in the negotiations, the exchanged letters among the parties participating, and the need to expand internal consultations before resuming talks, the statement explained.
Last week, Cairo and Khartoum suspended their participation in talks after a new proposal by Addis Ababa on the negotiations.
According to Cairo, the new proposal “does not include any rules of operation or elements that reflect the agreement’s legal imperative.”
Khartoum, for its part, said the proposal “raises serious concerns and a major development that threatens the continuation of negotiations.”
Egypt’s former Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Mohamed Nasr Eldin Allam told Asharq Al-Awsat that he does not expect negotiations to make any significant progress, especially in light of Egypt and Sudan’s rejection of Addis Ababa’s attempts to evade a legal agreement and a mechanism for resolving disputes.
Allam said the course of talks will either be resolved by an intervention of a party that may resolve the outstanding issues among the three countries, or by referring the whole issue to the UN Security Council and involving the international community to assume its responsibilities towards these serious threats to international peace and security.
Since 2011, the three countries have been negotiating to reach an agreement on filling and operating the Renaissance Dam – however, they failed to seal a deal.
Egypt and Sudan aspire to reach a comprehensive deal on GERD including its management but Ethiopia rejects this, while Egypt considers that it has a ‘historic right’ in the river by virtue of deals signed in 1929 and 1959.
Meanwhile, Ethiopia relies on a signed agreement in 2010 that approves implementing irrigation and dams’ projects at the river. Both Egypt and Sudan refused this agreement.
