MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st June, 2020) Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry expressed concerns over the situation around the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile River during phone talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and briefed the top Russian diplomat on Cairo's appeal to the UN Security Council in this relation, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Sunday.
Late on Saturday, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said that Cairo officially asked the UN Security Council to interfere in the course of the negotiations on the dam construction. Cairo stresses that the request to the UN body has been made following the stalled negotiations.
"During a conversation initiated by the Egyptian side, Shoukry expressed concerns about the situation in the Egyptian-Ethiopian relations in connection with Addis Ababa's construction of the Renaissance hydroelectric station on the Blue Nile river, and announced that Cairo had appealed to the UN Security Council with a request for a solution," the ministry said in a statement.
Lavrov reiterated Moscow's position on the need to reach a mutually acceptable compromise, taking into account the interests of all interested parties.
"Russia will adhere to this position when discussing this issue in various multilateral formats, including the UN," the ministry added.
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.
The trilateral talks on the dam resumed last week in an online format after a three-month pause. Earlier in June, 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 Nile's water resources.
