Washington will host a round of Renaissance Dam negotiations in January

"The foreign ministers of Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan are planning to meet in Washington on January 13 to try to reach an agreement on the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam," the US Treasury said.

She added in an official statement that the ministers agreed that technical meetings should try to set rules and guidelines for filling and operating the dam and determining drought conditions and measures to mitigate the effects of drought.

The statement revealed that the technical meetings of the three countries will include the development of rules for filling and operating the Renaissance Dam, determining the conditions of drought, measures to mitigate its effects, and the rates of water release from the dam, with the possibility of modifying it from the three countries.

The foreign ministers and ministers of water resources of the three countries met with US Treasury Secretary Stephen Manuchin and World Bank President David Malpas on Monday to resolve differences over the four-billion-dollar dam, in the second meeting of its kind in Washington since early November last.

On November 6, 2019, the foreign ministers of Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia agreed in Washington to hold four technical meetings, two of which were held in Addis Ababa in the middle of the same month, and the second in Cairo on December 3 and awaiting a meeting in Khartoum on December 21 A fourth in Addis Ababa, including two evaluation meetings in Washington, one on December 9 and January 13, 2020.

Egyptian fears
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Egypt stressed the importance of the three countries' engagement in negotiations in good faith and transparency, stressing the importance of "achieving Ethiopia's goals in generating electricity without harming Egypt's water interests."

It was not possible to obtain an immediate comment from Addis Ababa and Khartoum on the outcome of the meeting, but the US Treasury published on its website the text of the joint statement.

Egypt fears that filling the dam reservoir on the Blue Nile will restrict the already scarce water supply from the Nile, on which the country depends almost entirely.

On the other hand, Ethiopia says it does not aim to harm Egypt's interests, and that the aim of building the dam is to generate electricity in the first place.