Arab League to discuss the GERD construction
As the GERD file continues to stumble, the League of Arab States Council will hold an extraordinary meeting in Doha next Tuesday to discuss its developments. The meeting will be held at the request of Egypt and Sudan.
Egypt recently announced that the current negotiations track under the auspices of the African Union would not make any significant progress after talks the three countries talks failed last April.
Capitals Cairo and Khartoum had previously renewed their call for the international community to help in their decades-long dispute with Ethiopia over the giant dam Addis Ababa is expanding along the Blue Nile, the Nile’s primary tributary.
They also adhered to the need to reach a binding international agreement regulating the amount of water that Ethiopia releases downstream, especially in the eventuality of a drought for several years, which Addis Ababa rejects.
Egypt and Sudan still consider that the Ethiopian plan to add 13.5 billion cubic meters of water in 2021 to the dam’s reservoir is a threat. Meanwhile, administrative Addis Ababa sticks to its objectives, stressing that the US$5bn project is essential for the vast majority of its residents, who lack electricity.
