Sudanese Irrigation and Water Resources Minister Yasir Abbas on Sunday said Sudan, Egypt, and Ethiopia are nearing to solve issues regarding the filling and operating of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which is under construction near Ethiopia’s border with Sudan, reported Reuters.
Egypt fears that the dam will restrict supplies of already scarce Nile waters on which it depends on for over 95 percent of its water needs. The government claims that decline of Nile water levels by only two percent would impact one million people. Ethiopia, on the other hand, claims the hydroelectric dam, which will be Africa’s largest, is crucial to its economic development.
“Proposals were submitted by the three countries regarding filling the reservoir and operating the dam and a convergence (of views) occurred,” Abbas told reporters after meeting with his Egyptian and Ethiopian counterparts in Khartoum.
The meeting was a follow up on meetings held in November in Addis Ababa and one held in Cairo in December. Representatives of the U.S. Treasury and the World Bank also attended the meeting. Last month, the foreign ministers of Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan had agreed to work towards resolving their dispute over the $4 billion dam by Jan. 15, 2020.
“It was agreed to take the new positions separately to be discussed at the meetings in Addis Ababa,” the Sudanese minister said.
Abbas said that the ministers have also agreed to define droughts and the operating conditions during droughts. He added that Sudan has already proposed a specified time for filling the reservoir and added definitions for drought and continuous drought.
The representatives of the three countries will next meet in the Ethiopian capital on Jan. 9-10.
“We hope to reach an agreement on the rules of filling the dam’s lake and the following measures,” said Mohammed Abdel Atty, the Egyptian Minister of Irrigation.
