North, south Sudan reach “preliminary” deal to share Nile water after referendum, minister

November 28, 2010 (KHARTOUM) – North and South Sudan have struck a preliminary agreement to share Nile waters if the latter becomes fully independent as expected in a referendum vote set to take place in January 2011.

The disclosure was made on Sunday by Sudan’s state minister for irrigation and water resources, Salah Yousif, who told the privately owned Al-Akhbar daily newspaper that the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) in north Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) in the south had reached a “preliminary” agreement to continue sharing Nile Waters in the case of south Sudan secession.

South Sudan is widely expected to become a fully independent state when its citizens go to the polls in January 2011 to vote in a referendum promised under the 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war between north and south Sudan.

The two sides have been engaged in talks with little progress over a host of post-referendum issues, including security, citizenship, oil and water resources, currency matters, assets and liabilities and international treaties and agreements.

According to the minister, continued cooperation on water sharing would be governed by the agreed quotas in the permanent body of the Nile Basin Initiative, which was established in 1999 to enhance cooperation between Nile basin countries.

The minister further disclosed that the shares would be used to carry out projects agreed upon between the north and the south.

A decade of negotiations between the ninth countries of the Nile Basin to re-allocate shares of the Nile water has gone to no avail. Failure to reach an agreement has sparked controversy between the seven upstream states on one side, including Ethiopia which produces some 85 percent of the Nile Water, and Sudan and Egypt on the other.

Under a colonial time treaty, Sudan and Egypt are granted full utilization of the Nile Water, with Egypt receiving the lion share of 55.5 billion cubic meters a year and Sudan a quarter of the Nile’s total flow of around 84 billion cubic meters.

(ST)