Sudan’s prime minister has invited his Egyptian and Ethiopian counterparts to discuss a resolution on issues surrounding Ethiopia’s plans to build a dam on a tributary of the Nile, his office said on Wednesday.
Last week, talks with the three countries hosting the President of the African Union, Congo, failed to reach a binding agreement on the operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) and the filling of its large reservoir.
Ever since construction began in 2011, Egypt has viewed the dam as an existential threat to its water supply, while Khartoum fears that its own dams will be damaged if Ethiopia fills the reservoir without a deal.
“Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok invited his Egyptian counterpart Mostafa Madbouli and Ethiopian counterpart Abiy Ahmed to a summit within ten days to evaluate the GERD negotiations,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement late Tuesday.
It said Hamdok expressed concern that the construction of the dam had reached an advanced stage, which made “an agreement before the start of the operation an urgent and pressing issue.”
The statement said the planned summit would be held through video conferencing.
Last week, Ethiopia offered to share data with Egypt and Sudan, but the proposal was rejected by Khartoum and Cairo, who complained of “maladministration” in the figures and an “unacceptable tendency” of Addis Ababa to take unilateral action.
Ethiopia insists that the power produced by the huge hydropower project is indispensable for its development.
But Egypt and Sudan have pushed for a binding agreement before Ethiopia completes the filling of the dam’s large reservoir, which began last year.
Tensions over the dam come as Sudan’s relations with Egypt heat up, while its relations with Ethiopia have been embroiled in a dispute over the use of agricultural land near the common border.
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