On Monday, the Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok is set to visit Egypt and Ethiopia soon to resume negotiations over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), according to Sky News.
It added that Hamdok's statement was made during a phone call with US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, to express the Sudanese people's sympathy with the US over the rising cases of coronavirus in the United States.
The Sky News website confirmed that Hamdok expressed his intention to visit Cairo and Addis Ababa soon to urge the two parties to resume talks over the GERD and reach an agreement on the points of contention between the two countries.
During the phone conversation, Hamdok also agreed with the American side that the negotiations round hosted by Washington had made great progress.
The Sudanese PM and the US senior official also agreed on the need to continue negotiating after the world overcomes the coronavirus pandemic, which has infected at least 730,000 worldwide and killed another 34,000.
Earlier in March, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi met in Cairo with the Deputy Head of Sudan’s Transitional Military Council Mohammad Hamdan Dagalo.
Egypt took part in the latest GERD meeting in Washington on February 27 and 28, which produced a final agreement regarding filling and operating the GERD.
Representatives from Addis Ababa were noticeably absent from the meeting, and only Egypt has signed the agreement so far. Sudan has also abstained from signing the agreement to fill and operate the GERD.
Ethiopia has also warned that it would begin filling the dam in July without signing an agreement. Construction is not due to be finished until 2023.
It is worth mentioning that the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Water Resources of Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan and their delegations met with the Secretary of the Treasury and the President of the World Bank, participating as observers in negotiations on the filling and operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), in Washington, D.C. on January 28-31, 2020.
At the conclusion of the meetings, the ministers reached an agreement on the following issues, subject to the final signing of the comprehensive agreement:
1- A schedule for a stage based filling plan of the GERD
2- A mitigation mechanism for the filling of the GERD during drought, prolonged drought, and prolonged periods of dry years; and
3-A mitigation mechanism for the annual and long-term operation of the GERD in drought, prolonged drought, and prolonged periods of dry years.
Follow the latest news on Google News
