Tripartite talks on mega dam to resume next month: Ethiopian official

ADDIS ABABA, March 24 (Xinhua) -- Talks between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt on a 6,450 megawatts hydro dam Ethiopia is building on Blue Nile River will resume next month, an Ethiopian official said on Saturday.

Speaking exclusively to Xinhua, Meles Alem, Spokesperson of Ethiopia Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA), said talks will be held from April 4-5 in Khartoum, Sudan.

"The tripartite talks will focus on the dam operation and the modalities of water sealing of the reservoir, as part of efforts to create a wider consensus on the usage of Nile waters," he said.

The tripartite meeting was scheduled for Feb. 24-25 in Khartoum, but Ethiopia's ongoing political unrest is thought to have caused the delay.

Ethiopia and Sudan eye massive benefits from the construction of the project named Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), while Egypt is concerned it might affect its 55.5-billion-cubic-meter annual share of the Nile River water.

GERD, which will be Africa's largest dam upon completion with a total volume of 74 billion cubic meters, was started in April 2011 with a cost of about 4.7 billion U.S. dollars.

The GERD project, owned and financed by the Ethiopian government, is located some 40 km east of Ethiopia's neighboring country Sudan and is currently 64 percent complete.

The Ethiopian government even sees the electricity generated from the dam being sold in the future as far north to Morocco and as far south to Tanzania. Enditem