Sudan threaten legal action against Ethiopia in Nile dam dispute

Sudan threaten legal action against Ethiopia in Nile dam dispute

KHARTOUM/CAIRO - A Sudanese minister said on Friday that Ethiopia had rejected an invitation to a summit to discuss stalled negotiations over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, and threatened to go to international arbitration to resolve their differences.

Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia have been locked in inconclusive talks for nearly a decade over the filling and operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) which broke ground in 2011.

Ethiopia is pinning its hopes of economic development and power generation on the Blue Nile dam, which Egypt fears will imperil its water supply. Sudan is also concerned about the impact on its own water flows.

Talks in Kinshasa overseen by the African Union collapsed earlier this month, after which Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok invited his Ethiopian and Egyptian counterparts to Khartoum. He had given them until Friday to attend.

“Ethiopia has objected to the invitation of Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok for a three-way summit and we see that there is no justification for that,” Sudan's Irrigation Minister Yasir Abbas tweeted.

Ethiopia has said it planned to complete the second phase of filling the dam during the upcoming rainy season, a move Sudan and Egypt rejected before a binding legal agreement was reached.

“Given that the