GERD: Egypt Rejects Ethiopia’s Prevarication, Procrastination

For eights day in a row, talks continued on Friday over the Ethiopian Grand Renaissance Dam (GERD) in terms of filling and operating the dam under the auspices of the African Union and representatives of countries and observers.

Two meetings were held in parallel for the technical and legal teams from the three countries, Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia, to try to bridge the views on the points of dispute in both tracks in the presence of observers from the United States, the European Union, and the African Union.

“During the meeting of the technical committee, Egypt put forward some alternative formulations to try to bring views closer to the procedures for dealing with droughts in both filling and operation, in addition to the annual operating rules and refill,” said the Egyptian Ministry of Irrigation.

The Egyptian Irrigation Ministry stressed that Cairo exerts many efforts to resolve technical dispute points between the three countries.

“The Ethiopian side suggested postponing a decision on the dispute issues in the current negotiation process, as to be referred to the technical committee that will be formed under the agreement to follow up on the implementation of the terms of the agreement,” the Egyptian Irrigation Ministry added in a statement. 

The statement stressed that “Egypt rejects categorically this proposal,” pointing out that Cairo cannot accept to refer the contentious points that affect Egyptian concerns to a technical committee that shall settle the disputes after signing the agreement.

On the other hand, discussions continued on the Legal Committee without reaching consensus on the contentious points regarding the GERD's filling and operation rules.

“At the end of the technical committee meeting, it was agreed that Ethiopia would study the alternatives proposed by Egypt and that discussion would take place at the tripartite ministerial meeting that will be held on Sunday,” the statement noted. 

“We hope that Ethiopia will deal positively with the Egyptian alternatives to agree on the contentious points.”

Earlier, an emergency African Union Executive Council virtual session chaired by South African president Cyril Ramaphosa was held late June. Other attendees included Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta.

During the mini-African summit, it was announced that Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan will agree on a deal to fill the Renaissance Dam on the Nile river in two to three weeks.

“Consensus reached to finalize the GERD agreement within 2 to 3 weeks,” Seleshi Bekele, Ethiopia’s Minister of Water, Irrigation and Energy said in a tweet.

However, the Ethiopian premier office stated in the statement that “Ethiopia is scheduled to begin filling the GERD within the following two weeks.”

In this regard, the African Union and the mini-summit attendees urged Ethiopia, Egypt, and Sudan to cease “unnecessary media escalation,” the Ethiopian PM Office added.