Egypt Looks Forward For Just Solution on Renaissance Dam
Arab World
Cairo- Waleed Abdurrahman
Egypt has renewed talks about its dissatisfaction with the long period of negotiations over Ethiopia’s Great Renaissance Dam. Its Foreign Ministry stressed Friday the need to communicate and reach a just solution in this regard. “FM Sameh Shoukry stressed during his meeting with his Dutch counterpart Stef Blok, on the sidelines of the 74th session of the UN General Assembly in New York, that the Egyptian side is not pleased with the long period these negotiations have taken,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ahmed Hafez said. Shoukry’s remarks were preceded by meetings with Deputy Foreign Minister for African Affairs Ambassador Hamdi Sanad Lozawith Arab and African ambassadors in Cairo to brief them on the latest negotiations on filling and operating the dam. This came a few hours after Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi called on the international community to play a “constructive role” in urging all parties to be flexible in the negotiations over the dam. Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan have been carrying out negotiations for eight years now without reaching any solution. Cairo fears the dam would damage its share of the Nile's water, estimated at 55.5 billion cubic meters. It relies on it by more than 90 percent in drinking, agriculture, and industry. In September 2016, the three countries reached an agreement with two French offices to carry out technical studies to determine the social, environmental, and economic impacts of the dam construction. However, no final conclusions approved by all parties have been reached and negotiations are still ongoing. Addis Ababa has been building the four billion dollars-worth dam on the Nile since 2011 to become Africa’s largest energy exporter by generating more than 6,000 megawatts. According to the plan, the project will be completed in 2023. “The two-day meetings on Sept. 23, in which Egypt confirmed that the latest round of negotiations held in Cairo on Sept. 15 and 16 at the level of the three countries’ water ministers haven’t made any progress,” a foreign ministry statement read on Thursday. According to the statement, these meetings also didn’t include technical discussions because Ethiopia refused to consider the Egyptian vision on the rules of filling and operating the Renaissance Dam. It said Ethiopia has insisted on limiting the discussion to the paper it had submitted on Sept. 25, 2018.
from Asharq AL-awsat https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/1922491/egypt-looks-forward-just-solution-renaissance-dam
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