ADDIS ABABA –Foreign Ministers of Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt met in the US yesterday to finalize an agreement on the filling and operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).
An Ethiopian delegation led by Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gedu Andargachew, arrived in Washington DC for the two-day (Jan 28-29) talks. The delegation also included Minister of Water, Irrigation and Energy Dr Seleshi Bekele as well as water engineers and lawyers.
Dr Seleshi said the meeting focused on reviewing the legal writes up of the agreement on filling and operation that started in Khartoum last week. The draft was based on the already technically negotiated results.
“The main elements of the technical results include principles, filling stages, retained volumes of water in the dam, reservoir operation, drought and its management, data exchange and coordination mechanisms,” he said on Twitter.
The United States Secretary of the Treasury and the President of the World Bank (WB) are attending the meeting as observers. The three countries met last week in the Sudanese capital Khartoum for technical and legal discussion on the filling and operation of the dam.
During the meeting held two weeks ago in Washington, the three countries agreed the filling of the dam to be executed in stages. They also agreed the filling to take place during the wet season, from July to August, and will continue in September subject to certain conditions.
According to Dr Seleshi, Ethiopia will start filling the dam at the end of this year. It will be completed within 4-7 years.More than 70 percent of the works on the dam has so far been completed. GERD is scheduled to be fully completed in 2023.
The Ethiopian Herald, January 29/20120
BY STAFF REPORTER
