Today, Sunday, in Kinshasa, the first direct talks in months will start between the foreign and irrigation ministers in Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan, in an effort to break the deadlock in negotiations over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, at a time when Khartoum accused Addis Ababa of raising its demands.
The ministerial meetings between the ministers of the three countries will start under the auspices of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which holds the rotating presidency of the African Union, and will end on Monday.
The current round of talks in Kinshasa discusses the methodology and negotiation mechanisms in preparation for the parties' return to the negotiating table after a hiatus of several months.
The tour also discusses the quadripartite mediation proposal to add the United Nations, the European Union and the United States, under the leadership of the African Union, which is proposed by Sudan and Egypt, and rejected by Ethiopia.
The preliminary talks started yesterday with meetings held by the DRC Foreign Minister with the Ethiopian, Egyptian and Sudanese delegations, separately.
Al-Jazeera correspondent Ahmed Al-Raheid reported that the African Union mediation meeting - which is represented by the Democratic Republic of the Congo - had ended with the Sudanese delegation of experts and technicians to prepare for the ministerial meeting scheduled for this afternoon.
Before that, the Congolese mediation held separate meetings with experts and technicians from the Ethiopian and Sudanese sides.
Disputes and accusations
The ministerial meeting sponsored by the African mediation is held in light of divergent positions, with Ethiopia adhering to the second filling of the Renaissance Dam Lake, which is expected to take place next July, a step strongly opposed by Egypt and Sudan.
Egypt is demanding that a binding agreement be reached before that on the rules for operating and filling the Ethiopian dam, which is located on the Blue Nile River near the Ethiopian-Sudanese border, and its work has progressed by 79%, according to Addis Ababa.
Hours before the start of the ministerial meetings in Kinshasa, the Sudanese Minister of Irrigation, Yasser Abbas, accused Ethiopia of raising the ceiling to demand discussion of sharing the waters of the Nile.
Abbas from Kinshasa stressed that an agreement must be reached between the three countries before the second mobilization of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, whose cost exceeds $ 4 billion.
The Ethiopian Minister of Water and Irrigation, Seleshi Bakli, said yesterday, Saturday, that the coming months are crucial for the construction of the Renaissance Dam, and that work is underway to make the second filling of the dam successful.
Bakli added - in a speech published by the ministry on its website - that the country expects that the Kinshasa meeting will return the path of negotiations to its path, and that an agreement acceptable to all will be reached, he said.
The Ethiopian minister indicated that his country is making double efforts to produce the first electric energy from the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam by next August.