Sudan, Egypt, Ethiopia committed to reaching consensus on Nile dam: Sudan FM

KHARTOUM, April 5 (Xinhua) -- Sudan's Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour on Thursday reiterated that Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia are committed to reaching consensus on the controversial Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).

"We are here to meet with the same fraternal spirit ... by the leaders of the three countries," said Ghandour when addressing the opening session of the tripartite meeting on the GERD.

A new round of talks on the GERD opened in Khartoum with participation of foreign and water resources ministers, as well as chiefs of intelligence and security of Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia, in a bid to resolve their differences.

Following the opening sitting, the delegates of the three countries held a closed-door meeting.

The meeting is expected to review the means to utilize the water resources and make the GERD a means of development in the three countries instead of a source of conflict and difference.

The meeting is held as result of a recent summit which brought together leaders of Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa late January.

The last round of talks between the three countries on the GERD ended last November without reaching an agreement on a technical report prepared by French firms about the potential impact of the dam.

In late December 2017, Egypt proposed to Ethiopia to let the World Bank act as a neutral party in the activities of the tripartite technical committee, but Ethiopia refused the Egyptian proposal.

The GERD, which a cost of 4.7 billion U.S. dollars, is now 64 percent complete. Ethiopia hopes the project will provide a constant supply of clean and affordable power in the future, and accelerate its shift from an agricultural economy to an industrial powerhouse.

But Egypt, as a Nile downstream country, fears that the construction of the GERD would affect its share of the Nile water and lead to a water shortage in the most populous Arab country. Enditem