Tripartite committee on Ethiopian dam fails to resolve outstanding issues
December 12, 2015 (KHARTOUM) – The tripartite committee on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) Saturday ended its tenth meeting without any agreement on the technical issues.
He pointed the three parties are keen to reach an agreement on the outstanding issues, saying the discussion were held in an atmosphere of trust and cooperation.
Ghandour added the talks have mainly focused on the implementation of the declaration of principles signed between the presidents of the three nations.
Last March, the leaders of Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt signed in Khartoum a declaration of principles saying it would pave the way for further diplomatic cooperation on the GERD which has stirred fears of a regional resource conflict.
The Sudanese top diplomat stressed his country’s stance towards the GERD is driven by the national interest, noting their main objective is to implement the declaration of principles in order to arrive at an abiding agreement.
“We aren’t mediators, we aren’t neutral and we aren’t biased [with regard to the GERD] but we are stakeholders such as Egypt and Ethiopia … our stance on the GERD talks comes within the framework of our national interests which requires us to seek to converge views of the three parties,” he said.
Ghandour said they haven’t yet discussed a legal framework to govern the talks, noting the meetings are held within the framework of a trilateral partnership between the three eastern Nile Basin nations.
He added the partnership was based on the declaration of principles signed between the leaders of the three nations.
He denied the failure of the Khartoum meeting, saying some issues need further elaboration from the three parties.
The Sudanese top diplomat pointed they agreed to resume the meetings within two weeks, underscoring their keenness to achieve satisfactory outcome.
For his part, Sudan’s minister of irrigation and water resources Muataz Musa said the meetings discussed issues on the agenda, noting that talks would resume between 27 to 28 December.
He expected the three parties would achieve positive results in the next meeting.
The GERD, scheduled to be completed in 2017, will be Africa’s largest hydroelectric power plant with a storage capacity of 74 billion cubic metres of water.
Egypt has repeatedly expressed concerns that filling and operating the dam on the Blue Nile will negatively affect Egypt’s water supply, while Ethiopia has rejected those claims.
(ST)