Egypt announces new round of GERD tripartite negotiations

The Egyptian Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation announced on Monday the launch of a new tripartite round of ministerial negotiations on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (Gerd).

In a statement, the ministry said the new round kicked off in the Egyptian capital Cairo on Monday morning with the participation of delegations from Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia.

The ministry added that this current round of negotiations is a continuation of an ongoing negotiation process that has seen two previous rounds held in Cairo and later in Addis Ababa within the past two months.

The tripartite meeting is based on the agreement of three countries to speed up finalising the rules for filling and operating the Gerd dam, following the meeting of the leadership of Egypt and Ethiopia on July 13, the ministry said.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed agreed during a meeting in Cairo on July 13, on the sidelines of the summit of Sudan's neighbouring countries, to initiate urgent negotiations to reach an agreement on the Gerd within four months.

In February 2022, the Ethiopian government announced its grand hydroelectric dam has started generating electricity.

On September 10, Ethiopia's prime minister announced the completion of the fourth and final filling of the Gerd reservoir. Egypt warned that the move is a violation by Ethiopia of the Declaration of Principles signed by the three sides in 2015.

Ethiopia started to build the Gerd in 2011 and expects the giant hydropower project to generate more than 6,000 megawatts of electricity, but Egypt and Sudan have been worried that it might reduce their proportion of Nile water.