Sudan announces failure of Ethiopian Dam talks

Sudanese Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour has announced the failure of the talks held in Khartoum over the Ethiopian Dam, Al-Jazeera reported on Friday. The announcement came after 13 hours of meetings between representatives of Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia held to discuss the outstanding problems regarding the Renaissance Dam on the River Nile.

Foreign and Irrigation Ministers, intelligence chiefs and leading engineers from the three countries attended the talks. They were the first technical meetings in this regard after Egypt suspended the talks last November in protest at the Sudanese and Ethiopian modifications of the studies made by French experts about the dam.

“We met and discussed many issues,” explained Ghandour, “but in the end we did not reach any agreement to announce a final common decision. This is the case with controversial issues. They need the will and patience [to succeed].”

When asked if there will be other meetings in the future he replied:

We work upon the directions of the heads of the three countries.

The government in Cairo announced on Tuesday that it is interested in continuing the technical studies about the dam to guarantee avoiding any potential negative impact on Egypt and Sudan. While Ethiopia is hopeful that the dam will boost development in the country, Egypt is afraid of the effects of the expected reduction in its share of water from the River Nile, upon which its agriculture depends.