Sudanese lawmakers confer with Ethiopia’s house speaker
By Tesfa-Alem Tekle
March 29, 2017 (ADDIS ABABA) – A delegation of Sudanese lawmakers on Wednesday paid a visit to the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, for bilateral talks with their Ethiopian counterparts.
The Sudanese parliamentarians today discussed a range of issues of common concern with Abadula Gemeda, the speaker of Ethiopia’s House of Peoples’ Representatives.
The two sides agreed to jointly work together on bilateral and regional matters of common concern.
Both sides also consulted on ways of further consolidating relations as well as bolstering ties between Parliaments of the two neighbours.
Public diplomacy delegations from the two countries annually visit the two capitals or other regions to discuss development and cooperation programmes of mutual interests for the two peoples.
In May 2015, Speaker Gemeda was in Khartoum leading an Ethiopian delegation.
The Sudanese MPs said Ethiopia’s Renaissance Dam being built on Nile River near the Sudanese border will have a major development and economic significance for the two countries.
They said they are well aware that the massive dam project is being built in a safe way not to harm downstream countries.
The MPs who expressed the desire to visit the dam site added that heir visit will further scale up the long-standing cooperation and multilateral ties between the two countries.
House speaker Abadula to his side said his country is keen to further enhance cooperation with Sudan in a range of areas and affirmed the Ethiopian parliament would closely work with the Sudanese one to facilitate bilateral cooperation.
He noted that Ethiopia’s Nile dam is not intended to harm Sudan and Egypt and will not diminish their water share from the Nile River.
Egypt had been taking the mega project as a threat to its national water security arguing that the Dam’s large reservoir will eventually reduce water flow to its territory.
The $ 4.2 billion power project being built by the people and government of Ethiopia has electricity generation capacity of 6,450 mw.
(ST)