Hamdok Heads Sudan's Supreme Committee Meeting on GERD

Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdok headed the meeting of the Supreme Committee Monday to follow up the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam file.

According to the Sudanese News Agency, SUNA, the meeting discussed the report submitted by the committee's rapporteur, Yasser Abbas, Minister of Irrigation and Water Resources, in which he clarified the three countries' agreement to end the last round of negotiations, sponsored by the African Union on November 4, due to disagreements on negotiation methodology and the role of AU experts.

The meeting affirmed Sudan's calling for reaching a satisfactory and binding agreement for the three countries under the umbrella of the African Union, with a new methodology that gives a greater role to the AU experts in the negotiation process.

The meeting also stressed the need to reach an agreement to ensure the safe operation of the Roseires dam, which lies within a short distance from the Renaissance Dam.

The Supreme Committee will work to support the Sudanese negotiating position to reach a satisfactory and binding agreement on the first filling and operation of GERD.

Last Friday, the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the failure of recent negotiations on the Grand Renaissance Dam between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan, noting that there is a fundamental disagreement between Addis Ababa and Cairo over one of the terms.

The ministry said that Egypt disagreed about the strengthened role of African Union experts in the tripartite negotiations on the Renaissance Dam, during the negotiations that lasted for seven consecutive days, according to the Ethiopian news agency "ENA".

For its part, the Egyptian Ministry of Irrigation had also announced that the Water Ministers partaking in the negotiations, had failed to agree on a methodology for completing the negotiations in the next stage.