Talks around the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) continued with a new meeting to discuss mechanisms of technical exchange of information between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan on Thursday morning, state-owned Al-Ahram reported.
Representatives from the water resources ministries of each country are heading the delegations.
The three parties intend on choosing legal firms to represent the countries when consultancy regarding the building of the dam begins. They will also decide on what mechanisms they are to use in the future for exchanging technical information.
Egypt and Ethiopia have been locked in a diplomatic dispute over GERD, since Egypt fears that the dam will affect its share of Nile water.
Al-Sisi and Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn met in June and the two countries later announced a joint committee to streamline discussions on GERD. Both nations hailed the agreement as a “new chapter in relations between Egypt and Ethiopia… based on openness and mutual understanding and cooperation”.
In last meeting around the dam, in September, the delegates set the standards for the international expert consultancy due to assess the dam’s impact on the three countries set the procedural rules for the national experts committee.
Downstream countries Egypt and Sudan together receive the majority of Nile water. As per agreements signed in 1929 and 1959, Egypt annually receives 55.5bn cubic metres of the estimated total 84bn cubic metres of Nile water produced each year and Sudan receives 18.5bn cubic metres. Ethiopia was not part of these agreements.
Ethiopian President Mulatu Teshome said this month that 40% of the dam has already been built, according Al-Ahram.
New meeting on Ethiopia dam
