Sudan, Egypt say Ethiopia will not fill Nile dam without reaching deal

Sudan's Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok said the leaders had agreed to resume talks, suspended last week, the Sudan News Agency said, adding that negotiations would be resumed at a technical committee. With Ethiopia insisting it will use seasonal rains to begin filling the dam's reservoir next month, Cairo has appealed to the U.N. Security Council in a last-ditch diplomatic move.

Leaders of Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt agreed that Ethiopia will not start filling its Nile dam without reaching an agreement between them within two weeks, Sudan and Egypt said on Friday. There was no immediate comment from Addis Ababa, which has said previously it will start filling the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) being built about 15 km (nine miles) from the border with Sudan on the Blue Nile, the source of most of the Nile's waters.

The Egyptian presidency also said in a statement that Ethiopia will not fill the dam unilaterally, after leaders from the three countries and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who chairs the African Union, had an online summit. Sudan's Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok said the leaders had agreed to resume talks, suspended last week, the Sudan News Agency said, adding that negotiations would be resumed at a technical committee.

With Ethiopia insisting it will use seasonal rains to begin filling the dam's reservoir next month, Cairo has appealed to the U.N. Security Council in a last-ditch diplomatic move. The 15-member body is due to hold a public meeting on Monday at the request of the United States, which backed Egypt and Sudan's call for the Security Council to help break the impasse.

Ethiopia says the $4 billion hydropower project, which will have an installed capacity of 6,450 megawatts, is essential to its economic development.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)