Africa-Press Ethiopia
Sudan boycotted ministerial talks with Egypt and Ethiopia about a disputed Nile dam.
The move came in protest of what Khartoum said was the lack of response to its request for a bilateral meeting with African Union experts.
Sudan’s action was confirmed by the Egyptian government, which said the dialogue had to be abandoned as a result.
It came on the second day of talks between the three African nations over the operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.
Sunday’s meeting, which ended a month-long break, brought together the foreign and water ministers from each country.
Officials had agreed on Sunday that talks among the three water ministers and their teams of experts should continue for a week.
Foreign ministers would join them for a meeting on January 10 to review progress.
But Sudan’s boycott derailed that plan.
The talks, sponsored by the African Union, were held virtually because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Sudan said it did not get a response to its demand, but instead received an invitation to participate in Monday’s tripartite talks.
“This forced Sudan to stay away [from the Monday meeting] to emphasise its steadfast position that it is necessary to give the African Union experts a role to facilitate the negotiations and narrow the gap between the three parties,” Khartoum said.
Sudan was still committed to the negotiations, officials said.
The almost-complete hydroelectric dam is viewed as an existential threat by Egypt which, together with fellow downstream nation Sudan, has been trying to persuade Ethiopia to enter a legally binding deal on the dam’s operation and mechanisms on handling future disputes and persistent droughts.
The Sudanese boycott is the latest of a seemingly endless series of obstacles in nearly a decade of negotiations on the dam.
The Nile meets more than 90 per cent of Egypt’s water needs. The country fears a significant drop in its share of the river’s water as a result of the dam would mean the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs and the disruption of its sensitive food supply.
For Sudan, the absence of co-ordination on the operation of the dam built a short distance away from its border could potentially spell disaster for its eastern breadbasket region through flooding and the disabling of its hydroelectric Nile dams.
Further diminishing the chances of a breakthrough are recent tensions.
On Thursday, Cairo summoned the Ethiopian charge d’affaires to complain about comments made by Dina Mufti, the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry spokesman, accusing Egypt of using the dispute over the dam project to cover its internal problems.
Troops from Sudan and Ethiopia have had a series of deadly clashes over a disputed border, which flared up recently just as Ethiopian federal forces were fighting separatist rebels in the restless Tigray region.
That conflict, which began in November, has forced tens of thousands of mainly Tigrayans to flee their homes and seek refuge in Sudan.