CAIRO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th June, 2020) Cairo may appeal to the UN Security Council to resolve the conflict of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) after negotiations with Ethiopia and Sudan failed to bring settlement, spokesman for the Egyptian Foreign Ministry Ahmed Hafez said on Monday in a statement obtained by Sputnik.
The statement came following an online round table "Egyptian Diplomacy: Responding to Modern Challenges" held by Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry earlier in the day.
"The minister said that Egypt has been following the negotiation course for several years and sincerely wants to reach a fair agreement on this crisis so that it is beneficial to the three countries, however, the latest negotiations do not offer hope for positive results, as Ethiopia continues to insist. Thus, Egypt will be forced to look for other options, for example, appeal to the UN Security Council," the spokesman said.
Last week, Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan resumed talks on the dam in an online format after a three-month pause. On Saturday, a representative of the Egyptian Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation said that the Ethiopia-sponsored draft agreement denied water rights to downstream-located Sudan and Egypt and gave Ethiopia exclusive right to the river's water resources.
Since 2011, Ethiopia has been building what may become Africa's largest hydroelectric power plant. Sudan and Egypt fear that when the GERD is launched, it will inevitably lead to water shortages downstream, something that Ethiopia has consistently denied.
The three Nile basin states have held over a dozen rounds of talks since the start of the construction, but disagreements persist.
As of now, the construction of the dam is reportedly completed by more than 71 percent and is planned to be fully terminated in 2023.
