KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan have come closer to aligning their views on filling the reservoir of and operating the giant hydroelectric dam that Ethiopia is building on the Blue Nile, the Sudanese irrigation minister said on Sunday, 22 December 2019.
Egypt is worried the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), under construction near Ethiopia’s border with Sudan, will restrict supplies of already scarce Nile waters on which it is almost entirely dependent.
“Proposals were submitted by the three countries regarding filling the reservoir and operating the dam and a convergence (of views) occurred,” Sudanese Irrigation and Water Resources Minister Yasser Abbas told reporters after he met his Egyptian and Ethiopian counterparts in Khartoum.
In November, the foreign ministers of Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan agreed to work toward resolving their dispute over the $4 billion dam by Jan. 15, 2020, after meeting U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and World Bank President David Malpass in Washington.
They met in Washington again this month and are due for a third meeting on Jan. 13, where they will try to finalize an agreement to resolve the dispute.
The U.S. administration invited the three sides for talks after Egypt called for an external mediator on the issue, saying three-way talks had been exhausted. Addis Ababa had previously rejected the idea, accusing Egypt of trying to sidestep the process.
The three countries’ irrigation ministers will have further discussions at a meeting in the Ethiopian capital on Jan. 9-10, the Egyptian irrigation ministry said in a statement after Sunday’s meeting.
On Sunday (22 December), they also agreed to come up with a definition of droughts and how the dam would operate during droughts, Sudan’s Abbas said.
“There is a convergence (of views) in general, and there are differences of views in some circumstances. Sudan proposed a specified time for filling the reservoir and added definitions for drought and continuous drought,” Abbas said.
Egypt’s irrigation ministry said it was seeking to reach agreement on filling and operating the dam that “achieves the interests of the three countries… in a manner that preserves the sustainability of the river and the mutual benefit”.
There was no immediate comment from Ethiopia.
Source: Reuters
I think discussion is on matters of solving disagreement is good for going to armed conflict is not beneficial to any of the parties. But I always, am not clear why Egypt always think to harness the waters of Blue Nile with out contributing and even thinking on how to the issues of how to the sustainable use the diminishing water of the River? Due to environmental degradation and other man made factors, the source of the Blue Nile and other streams that feed Blue Nile are drastically decreasing. If the source and streams that feed Nile dies out, there will no more Nile, but we donot see Egypt trying part of the solution by reforestation and supporting projects for recovery of Nile other than always complaining and accusing Ethiopia.