Sudanese Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdok on Sunday stressed the need to reach a binding legal agreement about the filling and operation of the controversial Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), reported Egypt Today.
During a meeting with the chairman of the African Union Commission Moussa Faki Mahamat on Sunday, Hamdok said a legal agreement would enable Sudan to go ahead with its development projects and avoid any harm that could be caused due to lack of detailed information regarding the filling and operation of the dam.
The AU Commissioner Mahamat told the Sudanese prime minister that the AU is closely following negotiations on the Nile Dam, which has stalled multiple times, and agreed that Sudan could provide the Union with further information about the controversial dam.
The AU has been sponsoring the stalled GERD negotiations talks between Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia since July last year.
Last month, Egypt slammed Ethiopian remarks reiterating the unilateral plans to complete the second filling of the dam even in the absence of an agreement with Egypt and the Sudanese government. The Egyptian government said Ethiopia’s dam filling plans reveal its bad intentions and efforts to undermine the ongoing mediation efforts.
Last week, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry had sent a letter to the UN Security Council to reaffirm its “complete rejection” of Ethiopia’s unilateral measures on the filling of the disputed dam on the Nile River.
During the weekend, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said Egypt and Sudan would deal very decisively with any action by Ethiopia to proceed with a second filling of the dam this summer without a prior agreement. The minister said that by going ahead with the filling, Addis Ababa would be in breach of international laws governing trans-national rivers and a 2015 declaration by Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia that stipulated no action should be taken in regard to the dam.
