Leaders of Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt hopeful about deal soon

Leaders of Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt hopeful about deal soon

CAIRO -Leaders of Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt said they were hopeful that the African Union could help them broker a deal to end a decade-long dispute over water supplies within two or three weeks.

Ethiopia, which is building the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam which worries its downstream neighbours Egypt and Sudan, said it would fill the reservoir in a few weeks, as planned, providing enough time for talks to be concluded.

Tortuous negotiations over the years have left the two nations and their neighbour Sudan short of an agreement to regulate how Ethiopia will operate the dam and fill its reservoir, while protecting Egypt's scarce water supplies from the Nile river.

Ethiopia's Water and Energy Minister Seleshi Bekele said that consensus had been reached to finalise a deal within two to three weeks, a day after leaders from the three countries and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who chairs the African Union, held an online summit.

The announcement was a modest reprieve from weeks of bellicose rhetoric and escalating tensions over the $4.6 billion dam.

Billene Seyoum, a spokeswoman for Ethiopia's Prime Minister, said that in Friday's agreement there was "no divergence from Ethiopia's original position of filling the dam.“

Ethiopia has hinged its development ambitions