Renaissance Dam Negotiations Launched

Agencies – Sudan Events

The fourth round of tripartite negotiations between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan began on Monday in Addis Ababa, to reach an agreement on operating the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.
The chief negotiator of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, Seleshi Bekele, said that the ministerial meeting depends on the discussions of the previous sessions, and the meeting of the technical group to continue efforts to achieve rapprochement.
The negotiations come within the framework of the agreement previously reached by Egyptian President Abdul Fattah El-Sisi and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed last July – on the sidelines of the summit of Sudan’s neighboring countries in Cairo – regarding conducting urgent negotiations to complete the agreement to fill and operate the Renaissance Dam within four months, which is the period that ended last month.
This was preceded by the last round of negotiations in Cairo last October, which took place at the ministerial level in the presence of the three countries, without announcing any progress in reaching the desired agreement.
Egypt and Sudan are demanding the signing of a “binding legal” agreement that regulates the process of filling and operating the Renaissance Dam, which Ethiopia is constructing on the Blue Nile.
Ethiopia is preparing for the fifth storage of water behind the dam lake after completing the concrete work to heighten the middle corridor, after it had announced the completion of the fourth filling last September.