Tripartite committee on Ethiopia’s disputed Nile dam concludes meetings

Cairo, Nov 4 (SocialNews.XYZ) A legal and technical committee, which comprises experts from Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan, concluded its meetings on the disputed Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) built on the Nile river.

Mohamed al-Sebai, spokesman of Egypt's Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, said the committee of experts ended its meetings on Tuesday, during which the process of upcoming ministerial negotiations on the filling and operation of the GERD was discussed, reports Xinhua news agency.

The recent round of talks by the three countries on the filling and operation of the GERD kicked off in the Sudanese capital Khartoum on Sunday.

The three countries have also agreed to work during the week-long round to set up an agenda as well as timetable for the negotiations and a list of the outcomes to be reached with the help of the observers and experts in a manner that is different from the previous rounds.

Meanwhile, al-Sebai revealed that the three countries would present their viewpoints during a virtual meeting of their water ministers scheduled to be held tomorrow.

Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia have been negotiating under the sponsorship of the African Union over the technical and legal issues related to the filling and operation of the GERD.

Ethiopia, which started building the GERD in 2011, expects to produce over 6,000 megawatts of electricity from the project to push the country's development forward.

However, Egypt and Sudan, both downstream Nile Basin countries that rely on the Nile river for water, are concerned that the dam might affect their Nile water share.

Source: IANS