A preliminary draft has been prepared on the “points of disagreement and contention” over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).
According to Egypt’s Irrigation Ministry, the mini-technical committee, which consists of one technical and other legal members from Ethiopia, Egypt, and Sudan, held a meeting on Saturday and drafted the document.
The meeting was held under the auspices of the African Union (AU) and attended by observers from the European Union and the United States and experts from the AU Commission.
Cairo, Addis Ababa, and Khartoum’s ministers of water resources agreed on the future steps and decided that the committee will continue the AU-sponsored talks until August 28, in an attempt to resolve outstanding issues.
The Ministry affirmed in a statement that a report will be submitted after the end of scheduled talks to the AU Chief and South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa.
It pointed out that the meeting is based on the outcomes of the July 21 mini-summit and August 16’s joint six-party meeting between the three countries’ ministers of water resources and irrigation and the ministers of foreign affairs.
For nearly a decade, talks among the three countries over the operation and filling of the mega-dam have faltered. The dam, which Addis Ababa began constructing in 2011 on the Nile River, raises many Egyptian and Sudanese concerns.
Negotiations are resumed with the aim of “bridging the differences,” as Egypt and Sudan adhere to the importance of reaching a “binding legal agreement” to regulate the dam’s filling and operation.
They are keen to secure their water interests and limit the damages and effects of this dam, specifically reaching a mechanism to handle periods of drought and protracted drought.
Ethiopia rejects “restricting its rights to use its water resources.”
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.
