Africa-Press-Ethiopia<\/p>\n
The leaders of Sudan and Ethiopia will separately travel to the South Sudanese capital Juba next week to start a mediation bid by the South Sudanese government to defuse a border dispute.<\/p>\n
Senior presidential aide Tut Gatluak, who has been travelling between Khartoum and Addis Ababa in recent weeks for talks with their leaders on the dispute, announced the visits on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
While in Juba, Sudan\u2019s de facto head of state Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed will meet South Sudanese President Salva Kiir.<\/p>\n
Depending on the outcome of these talks, a three-way summit could be held later in Juba, Mr Gatluak said.<\/p>\n
Also on Wednesday, a spokesman for the Sudanese Foreign Ministry said the country\u2019s ambassador to Addis Ababa had been summoned for \u201cconsultations”, Reuters reported.<\/p>\n
It was not immediately clear if it was linked to the border dispute.<\/p>\n
A Saudi government envoy, Minister of State for African Affairs Ahmed Qatan, was in Khartoum on Wednesday to try to defuse tension between Sudan and Ethiopia.<\/p>\n
He held talks with Sudanese leaders including Gen Al Burhan and Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok. He was scheduled to visit Addis Ababa later this week.<\/p>\n
The Sudanese-Ethiopian border dispute began when the Sudanese military moved in December to wrest back control of enclaves on its side of the border.<\/p>\n
Those areas had for decades been settled by farmers from the powerful Amhara ethnic group.<\/p>\n
The Sudanese move started deadly clashes.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, Khartoum said Ethiopian forces had crossed into Sudanese territory and warned that Addis Ababa would have to suffer consequences of its \u201caggression\u201d if they were not pulled back.<\/p>\n
Sudan insists that a colonial-era demarcation deal reached in 1902 remained valid to this day and must be respected by Ethiopia.<\/p>\n
Addis Ababa insists it would only negotiate with Sudan after its forces pull out from the areas they retook.<\/p>\n
The two countries, and Egypt, are also at odds over a huge Nile dam built by Ethiopia less than 20 kilometres from the Sudanese border.<\/p>\n
Sudan wants Ethiopia to enter a legally binding agreement to share data on the operations of the hydroelectric dam to protect its territory from flooding and ensure the smooth running of its own power-generating dams on the Blue Nile.<\/p>\n
Ethiopia said it would agree only to non-binding recommendations and would go ahead with a second phase of filling the dam’s reservoir in July, regardless of whether an agreement was reached.<\/p>\n
Egypt, like Sudan a downstream nation, is alarmed that the dam could significantly reduce its share of the Nile\u2019s waters, costing hundreds of thousands of jobs and disrupting its delicate food balance.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Africa-Press-Ethiopia The leaders of Sudan and Ethiopia will separately travel to the South Sudanese capital Juba next week to start a mediation bid by the South Sudanese government to defuse a border dispute. Senior presidential aide Tut Gatluak, who has been travelling between Khartoum and Addis Ababa in recent weeks for talks with their leaders […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":2896,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,12],"tags":[264,241,313],"class_list":["post-2893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-abiy-ahmed","tag-africa-press-ethiopia","tag-south-sudan"],"yoast_head":"\n