Egypt’s Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation denied the news about issuing a joint statement for the water ministers of Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia following the second ministerial meeting in Cairo on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).
Cairo hosted on Monday and Tuesday the second of the four meetings to be held at the level of ministers of water resources and technical delegations from the countries involved in the GERD talks.
In a statement on Tuesday night, Egypt’s Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation extended hopes for reaching an agreement on the disputed issues in the upcoming ministerial meeting to be held in Washington D.C., US on 9 December.
In another statement on Tuesday, the ministry clarified that the meeting resumed discussing the outcomes of the first meeting which was held on 15 and 16 November in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in order to approach points of views of the three countries to reach an agreement over the proposed filling and operation rules of GERD’s reservoir.
The meeting came as an outcome of the earlier one hosted by the US in Washington on 6 November when foreign ministers of the three countries gathered in the presence of the World Bank representative. The negotiations led to an agreement to announce a two-month negotiation time about the filling period with participation of the WB.
Meanwhile, the Sudanese Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Yasser Abbas, said on Tuesday, that his country has submitted proposals on the first filling and the annual operation of the GERD, at the conclusion of the tripartite meeting in Cairo.
On 9 December, the US will host a meeting to evaluate the outcomes of the two meetings and what the parties have achieved. The third tripartite meeting, to continue discussions and resume negotiations over the technical issues, will be held in Khartoum, Sudan on 21 and 22 December 2019.
