Egypt’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Sameh Shoukry, and head of General Intelligence Abbas Kamel met Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in Addis Ababa and discussed ways to support and strengthen Egyptian-Ethiopian relations, the Foreign Ministry said.
Shoukry and Kamel conveyed a message from President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi to the Ethiopian prime minister.
During the meeting Shoukry and Kamel stressed the importance of pushing forward the course of the negotiations of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), and activate the triangular fund to finance projects between Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopian.
The ministerial delegation conveyed the Egyptian side’s keenness to follow up the course of strengthening the Egyptian-Ethiopian relations in all fields, in line with the aspirations of the two peoples’ for development, praising the steps and constructive initiatives taken by the Ethiopian prime minister to promote stability and peace in East Africa.
They further discussed the developments of the tripartite negotiations process to finalise the renaissance within the framework of mutual care to implement the 2015 Declaration of Principles and the outcomes of the last inter-ministerial meeting held in Addis Ababa in May 2018.
The GERD, formerly known as the Millennium Dam, is under construction in the Benishangul-Gumuz region of Ethiopia, on the Blue Nile River. Construction of the dam started in April 2011 and was expected to be accomplished by 2017, despite changes in design and installed power generation capacity.
Egypt expressed concerns that the construction of the GERD could negatively affect its historic Nile water share of 55bn cubic metres, which it has had access to since the historic 1959 agreement between Egypt and Sudan.
