Sudan minister: Safety of Renaissance Dam better than Sudan, Egypt dams

Ethiopia’s Renaissance dam is safer than the dams in Sudan and Egypt, which is important as its presence impacts Sudan the most due to its proximity to the country, the Sudanese Minister of Irrigation and Water Resources, Yasser Abbas, revealed on Saturday.

“The Renaissance Dam’s degree of safety is better than that of Sudanese dams and Egypt’s High Dam, based on some studies,” Abbas said in a television interview. This, he explained, is due to the materials and technology used in its construction.

“We only side with our interests, and sometimes they go along with those of Egypt or Ethiopia. When we said that the Renaissance Dam is beneficial to us, we were accused of siding with Ethiopia,” he continued.

Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt have been in talks for a couple of years in an effort to reach an agreement on Addis Ababa’s dam. Cairo is concerned that Ethiopia’s dam will severely reduce its water supplies. However, Addis Ababa says the dam was not intended to harm Egypt’s interests but has been built to generate electricity.

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