CAIRO, Oct 24 (NNN-MENA) – The Egyptian Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, announced yesterday, the launch of a new tripartite round of ministerial negotiations on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).
In a statement, the ministry said, the new round kicked off in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, yesterday morning, with the participation of delegations from Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia.
The ministry added that, this current round of negotiations is a continuation of an ongoing negotiation process, that has seen two previous rounds held in Cairo and later in Addis Ababa, within the past two months.
The tripartite meeting is based on the agreement of the three countries, to speed up finalising the rules for filling and operating the GERD dam, following the meeting of the leadership of Egypt and Ethiopia on Jul 13, the ministry said.
Egyptian President, Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, and Ethiopian Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, agreed during the meeting in Cairo on Jul 13, on the sidelines of the summit of Sudan’s neighbouring countries, to initiate urgent negotiations to reach an agreement on the GERD within four months.
In Feb, 2022, the Ethiopian government announced its grand hydroelectric dam has started generating electricity.
On Sept 10, Ethiopia’s prime minister announced the completion of the fourth and final filling of the GERD reservoir. Egypt warned that, the move is a violation by Ethiopia of the Declaration of Principles signed by the three sides in 2015.
Ethiopia started to build the GERD in 2011, and expects the giant hydropower project to generate more than 6,000 megawatts of electricity, but Egypt and Sudan have been worried that it might reduce their proportion of the Nile water.– NNN-MENA
