Ethiopia and Sudan have ignored an invitation by Egypt to hold another meeting over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said his country regretted their failure to respond in time for the meeting that was scheduled for Friday 20 April, saying the matter needed to be dealt with soon.
“Losing more time will make it more difficult to reach a solution to these technical problems, we only have 15 days left,” Shoukry said.
Cairo has long expressed fears that the dam which Ethiopia is building on its share of the Nile River will threaten water supplies that have fed Egypt’s agriculture and economy for thousands of years.
Ethiopia however hopes the dam will help make it Africa’s biggest power exporter and has played down fears that it will threaten Egypt’s water supply.
The North African country in December sought help from the United Nations in the resolving of the row with Ethiopia.
Presidents Abdel Fatah el-Sisi (Egypt), Hassan Omar al-Bashir (Sudan) and Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn (Ethiopia) in January met in Addis Ababa on the sidelines of the 30th African Union Summit, from where they said they would work together to reach an amicable solution.
In the latest development Egyptian FM Shoukry said his country will still wait for the other sides to make an effort to resolve the issue.
“Despite all our efforts, we do not see a reciprocal effort from the other side… so, we will wait until there is a desire from our partners to raise the matter once more,” the minister said.
