The Ethiopian Foreign Ministry has said that it is willing to resume tripartite negotiations with Egypt and Sudan to resolve the issues over the controversial Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), reported The BBC.
Mesganu Arga, Ethiopia’s State Minister for Foreign Affairs, made the announcement during talks with Mike Hammer, the United States special envoy for the Horn of Africa,
“Regarding Gerd, he [Ambassador Mesganu] said Ethiopia is ready to resume the tripartite negotiations under the auspices of the AU,” the Ethiopian foreign ministry posted on Twitter.
The construction and operation of the dam have strained diplomatic relations between Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia. There have been several rounds of talks between the three countries’ governments, but, they have failed to produce an agreement over the filling and operation of the dam.
The construction of the GERD began in 2011. Ethiopia started filling the dam in stages in 2020, rising Egypt and Sudan’s tensions, which fear that the dam will decrease their shares of Nile water.
Earlier this month, Egypt denounced a statement made by the Ethiopian Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, in which, he accused Cairo of attempting to politicize the Nile water and the GERD issue.
Ambassador Hamdi Loza, Deputy Foreign Minister for African Affairs, stressed that Egypt’s concerns about its water security due to the repercussions of the Nile dam are real and based on documented scientific studies.
He added that the claim made by Ethiopia that Egypt is trying to politicize the GERD issue is nothing but an attempt to do away with its legal responsibility and disregard the principles of international law and good neighborliness.
Ambassador Loza said that it is unfortunate that Ethiopian officials continue to call for the resumption of negotiation talks under the auspices of the African Union (AU), in a new attempt to get time and continue filling the dam without an agreement.
