Sudan hosts tripartite Ethiopia dam meeting

The foreign ministers of Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan started a meeting on the construction of the Great Ethiopian Renascence Dam (GERD) on Tuesday in the Sudanese capital Khartoum.

The GERD, extending on an area of 1,800 square km, is scheduled to be completed in a period of three years at a cost of 4.7 billion U.S. dollars. So far, around 30 percent of the dam project has been finalized.

"We hope this meeting would be a historical one on the GERD. We have reiterated our commitment to cooperation and to pressing ahead toward reaching solutions," said Ali Karti, Sudan's foreign minister, when addressing the tripartite meeting.

"These talks should be culminated with a clear declaration or an agreement," Karti said.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said "this high-level meeting indicates our willingness for cooperation. We have come to Khartoum to take the opportunity to reach an agreement that achieves the interests of over 200 million people in the three countries."

"Our joint resources are huge and necessitate us to utilize them based on our common interests. The Nile River remains a lifeline and we should be participating sincerely to reach solutions that address the (standing) concerns," Shoukry added.

Ethiopian Foreign Minister Tedros Adhanom, for his part, reiterated that the Nile is a symbol of collaboration, saying that "the principles of win-win approach and reasonable utilization are the bases to realize our regional cooperation." Endit