Renaissance Dam: in Kinshasa, the tripartite meeting ends without agreement
The Great Renaissance Dam built in Ethiopia in the Benishangul Gumuz region, on the Blue Nile.
REUTERS / Tiksa Negeri
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
The tripartite meeting on the Grand Dam of the Renaissance (GERD) ended on Tuesday April 6 in Kinshasa.
Scheduled for two days, it lasted three days, without the Ethiopian, Sudanese and Egyptian delegates reaching an agreement.
Félix Tshisekedi hoped to trigger a new dynamic through this meeting in order to reach a consensual roadmap.
This meeting should also lead to the definition of the objectives and the frequency of the next meetings.
The discussions, long and difficult, unfortunately did not move the file forward.
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With our correspondent in Kinshasa
,
Patient Ligodi
The closed session was not easy.
Each country was represented by two ministers and eight experts.
After the first hiccups, the six ministers found themselves alone to try to move forward, but without success.
Marie Ntumba Nzeza, head of Congolese diplomacy, had to change the format of the discussions several times.
Even the bilateral approach has not moved the debate forward either.
One of the main points of disagreement is
the second phase of filling
the dam reservoir.
Ethiopians are keen to take action in July, which is the start of the rainy season.
The proposal for a new meeting from April 20 to 21 was rejected, in particular by Egypt.
Sudan, for its part, denounces what it considers to be the bad faith of the Ethiopian side.
The Sudanese envoys want the United Nations, the European Union and the United States to become more involved alongside the African Union to move the file forward.
In the absence of an agreement, there was no closing ceremony for the negotiations.
Delegates from the three countries did not attend the reading of the short final communiqué.
Reading made by the Congolese Minister of Foreign Affairs who appeared alone in front of the journalists.
Félix Tshisekedi will have to learn the lessons of this new failure to
try to defuse this crisis
before it escalates.
#RDC 04.04.2021 | #Kinshasa
Under the facilitation of the Head of State, Félix-Antoine Tshisekedi, President in office of the @_ AfricanUnion, Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan take part, from 04 to 05 April , at the International Conference on the Renaissance Dam (GERD).
pic.twitter.com/MBsjs8M1zX
- RDC Presidency 🇨🇩 (@Presidence_RDC) April 4, 2021
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