Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt hold an unannounced meeting to discuss Ethiopian Dam

03:57 PM Feb, 13 2015
Sudanese Online
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Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt held on Thursday an unannounced meeting to discuss The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam being built by Addis Ababa on the Nile River.
Informed sources disclosed to Ethiopian media that along with experts from the three countries, the meeting was attended by Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, Egyptian Irrigation Minister Hossam Moghazi, Ethiopian Foreign Minister Tedros Adhanom and Sudanese Irrigation Minister Moataz Moussa.
Ethiopia and Egypt are trying to narrow their differences over the dam project.
The two countries agreed to resume tripartite talks – along with downstream Sudan – after Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi and Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn met in Equatorial Guinea last summer.
Meetings of a tripartite technical committee, set up in 2011, resumed last August following an eight-month hiatus due to ongoing differences between Cairo and Addis Ababa.
Last September, the tripartite committee decided to hire research firms tasked with assessing the project's anticipated trans-boundary and environmental impact.
Egypt fears the dam will negatively affect its traditional share of water from the Nile, its only source of water.
Ethiopia, for its part, says the project is indispensible to its own national development and the economic welfare of its burgeoning population.




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Darfuri child with bullets (Albert González Farran/Unamid)

The UN Security Council has adopted a resolution, renewing the mandate of the Panel of Experts of the Sudan Sanctions Committee for an additional 13 months, until 12 March 2016.

Russia and the USA have been negotiating details of the resolution, and made some adjustments. The new resolution strengthens the language regarding restrictions against the transport of weapons and ammunition into Darfur by the Sudanese authorities and government-affiliated armed groups.

It recalls that Sudan is obliged under resolution 1591 to request approval from the Sanctions Committee, in advance of transporting military equipment and supplies into Darfur.

The Experts’ Panel has to share any evidence of potential non-compliance with the assets freeze and travel ban.

Additionally, the resolution condemns the use of camps for Darfuri displaced by armed groups in ways that benefit them, and pose risks to civilians. This also represents a departure from last year’s resolution.

Russia argued that the initially circulated draft version tended to be too critical of the Sudanese government, without sufficiently acknowledging the role of the rebel groups in the violent conflict.

The chairman of the Sudan Sanctions Committee, Ambassador Rafael Ramírez (Venezuela) told the Security Council that the Committee was concerned about attacks on civilians and UN personnel, while noting that several Committee members pointed to continued violations of the arms embargo.

(Source: UN, AP)

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