The Renaissance Dam... a new round of absurd negotiations
On Monday, a new round of negotiations on the Ethiopian “Renaissance Dam” was launched in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, at the ministerial level with the participation of the water ministers of Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan, amid “low expectations” regarding reaching “positive results”, in light of the faltering of the previous rounds of negotiations. .
According to the Egyptian Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources, the current round “comes within the framework of following up on the negotiating process following the two rounds that were held in Cairo and then Addis Ababa, the past two months, based on the agreement of the three countries to accelerate the finalization of the agreement on the rules for filling and operating the Renaissance Dam, following a meeting.” The leaderships of Egypt and Ethiopia on July 13 of this year.”
The current session is the third after two previous rounds in Cairo and Addis Ababa, last August and September, which did not result in any agreement, which contributed to the complexity of the negotiating path, according to observers, especially after the Ethiopian Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, announced last September 10, the success of the negotiations. His country completed the fourth process of filling the Renaissance Dam reservoir, in a move that was criticized by the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the time, which it considered “a disregard for the interests and rights of the downstream countries (Egypt and Sudan) and their water security guaranteed by the rules of international law.”