Meeting on GERD concludes without agreement

Addis Ababa, January 9, 2020 (FBC) –The trilateral ministerial technical meeting between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt on the filling and operation of GERD concluded without agreement.

The Addis Ababa meeting was the fourth and final of the series of meetings approved by the three countries in Washington DC last November.

In the two-day meeting held in the Ethiopia capital, Egypt came up with a new proposal that suggests Ethiopia to fill the Grand Ethiopia Renaissance Dam (GERD) within 12-21 years.

Dr Seleshi Bekele, Minister of Water, Irrigation and Energy, told journalists after the meeting that “Egypt’s new proposal is unacceptable in any measurement.”

Egypt’s proposal also assumes natural flow on the Blue Nile River and obliges Ethiopia to compensate the cumulative deficit for the water it uses for Dam filling.

Egypt’s proposal which assumes natural flow zeroes all abstractions including the existing water development projects Ethiopia built for the past 50 years on the Blue Nile.

Ethiopia proposed a filling plan that is stage based and will take from 4 – 7 years depending on the inflow at the GERD and to take mitigation measures in the incidence of drought or prolonged drought during filling and operation of the Dam.

According to Dr Seleshi, the insistence by the delegation of Egypt to have its entire proposal accepted has prohibited reaching of an agreement.

The three countries will meet in Washington on January 13, 2020 to finalize their agreement.

If an agreement is not reached by January 15, they will invoke article 10 of the 2015 Declaration of Principles.

Article 10 states that “The three countries commit to settle any dispute resulting from the interpretation or application of the declaration of principles through talks or negotiations based on the good will principle.

“If the parties involved do not succeed in solving the dispute through talks or negotiations, they can ask for mediation or refer the matter to their heads of states or prime ministers.”