Ethiopian officials announced on Friday that negotiations between them and Sudan and Egypt that this past week in Washington ended without a final agreement on the longstanding Nile River dispute.
Officials from the three countries met February 12 to 13 to discuss the operation of Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam project on the Nile River.
Ethiopian Water Minister Seleshi Bekele indicated on his Twitter that progress had been made this week, but “more work is needed to reach an agreement by the end of the month.”
Bekele said that the Ethiopian Ministry of Water and Foreign Affairs “will hold national consultations within the next week to achieve consensus on the results and the way to forward.”
The Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that negotiations had been completed on the components of the agreement to fill and operate the Renaissance Dam.
In a joint statement released by the US Treasury Department website, following the conclusion of the latest round of negotiations, Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia announced that the final agreement would be signed before the end of February.
According to the statement, these elements include filling the dam in stages, and specific procedures to deal with droughts, protracted droughts and scarce years that may coincide with the filling process of the dam.
This article published first at “The East African”
