Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2014 15:59:30 +0200
Tripartite Renaissance Dam meeting kicks off in Cairo
The latest tripartite meeting between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan will aim to
reach agreement on the international technical consultancy tasked with
assessing Ethiopia's dam project
Ahram Online , Thursday 16 Oct 2014
http://english.ahram.org.eg/App_Themes/Black/images/line_re.jpg
A new meeting of the tripartite committee between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan
on Ethiopia's controversial Grand Renaissance Dam kicked off Thursday
morning in Cairo.
The meeting comes a month after a previous one in Addis Ababa, where
Egyptian officials said a breakthrough had been reached in talks, despite
that many issues of contention concerning the building of the dam were still
unresolved.
Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan's delegations will be headed by each country's
water resources minister.
In September's meeting, standards for the international expert consultancy
that would assess the dam's impact were set, as well as the procedural rules
of the national experts committee formed by an agreement between the three
countries in August, and which would ultimately decide on issues pertinent
to the dam's construction.
Egypt is worried the dam will affect its annual share of Nile water.
Ethiopia insists the dam won't have any negative effect on Egypt. Some 40
percent of the dam has already been built, Ethiopian President Mulatu
Teshome said this month.
According to Al-Ahram's Arabic news website, the parties will also choose
the legal firms that will represent the countries when the consultancy is
decided upon. The mechanisms of exchanging technical information needed from
the three countries will also be established in the meeting.
The anticipated study should conclude by March 2015, according to Egypt's
Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation.
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