Sudan, Ethiopia Agree to Resume GERD Talks Next Week

On Sunday, Sudan’s government announced that Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed agreed to resume negotiations within the next week about the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), an issue that has caused tensions between the two countries.

The new round of talks come after Sudan decided to boycott the recent dam negotiations between Khartoum, Cairo and Addis Ababa, stressing the need to change the negotiation methodology to make a breakthrough that would allow progress in talks through showing a great reliance on African Union experts.

The Sudanese's Prime Minister concluded a fruitful visit to Addis Ababa, where he met with Abiy Ahmed to broker a ceasefire in its northern Tigray region, a proposal Ethiopia said was unnecessary because fighting had stopped.

Hamdok, who was accompanied by Sudanese security officials, planned to present his concerns about threats to Sudan’s security along its border with Tigray during the visit, the officials said. However.

Fighting erupted on Nov. 4 between Ethiopia’s government and the then-governing party in Tigray, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). Thousands of people are believed to have been killed and more than 950,000 displaced, some 50,000 of them into Sudan, according to U.N. estimates.

Abiy government declared victory over the TPLF after its forces took control of the regional capital, Mekelle, on Nov. 29. The TPLF has said it is continuing to fight from mountains surrounding Mekelle.

Abiy welcomed Hamdok, and later tweeted that he and the Sudanese delegation had good discussions, “during which we reached an understanding on various issues that will further augment cooperation between our two countries”.

Hamdok and Abiy also agreed to call a meeting of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, an East African regional bloc that Hamdok currently chairs, the Sudanese cabinet said in a statement.