Egypt agrees to look at proposal for resuming GERD talks under African Union, says govt source

Egypt has promised the Democratic Republic of Congo, which holds the revolving premiership at the head of the African Union this year, to look at new “ideas” that Kinshasa delivered to Cairo on Thursday regarding the future course of talks on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and the future management of Nile resources, an Egyptian government source told Mada Masr.

However, the government source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the DRC’s framework does not appear to meet Cairo’s prime demand for a legally binding agreement to resolve the dispute between Ethiopia and downstream Sudan and Egypt which has now stretched on for over a decade.

No agreement between the three countries emerged in the latest round of AU-hosted GERD talks in April, the first during the DRC’s stewardship after several rounds steered by the previous AU chair South Africa in 2020 also produced repeated no-deal impasses.

Accordingly, Ethiopia began the second annual filling of the dam as scheduled in July without consulting the downstream countries, who fear their access to crucial freshwater resources from the Nile could be compromised by Ethiopia’s management of the GERD. 

The new ideas, which DRC Foreign Minister Christophe Lutundula presented to Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry in Cairo last week, include a number of proposed alternative formulations for the most contentious points of the dam dispute, with a focus on searching for compromises in the three countries’ positions. The proposals were developed by the DRC in its capacity with the AU, alongside water experts from the AU and legal experts from the European Union and the team of US special envoy to the Horn of Africa Jeffrey Feltman.

The US has acted as an observer to talks since November 2019, though Ethiopia walked out of an earlier round of negotiations held in Washington DC under the presidency of Donald Trump. 

After their meeting last week, Lutundula and Shoukry held a joint press conference at which Lutunda stressed that the Renaissance Dam dispute can be resolved within the framework of the AU, while Shoukry emphasized Egypt's “full readiness and flexibility in responding and studying what is being proposed.”

The Egyptian government source who spoke to Mada Masr, however, did not express great enthusiasm for the plan presented by Lutundula, saying that it does not meet the main Egyptian demands related to a “binding agreement, a monitoring mechanism, and a dispute resolution mechanism.”

Lutundula did not acknowledge the formal statement that the United Nations Security Council issued on Wednesday, that urged Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia to “take forward the AU-led negotiation process in a constructive and cooperative manner” and to “finalize expeditiously the text of a mutually acceptable and binding agreement on the filling and operation of the GERD.” The 15-member Security Council has previously been reluctant to weigh in on the dam dispute for fear of setting a precedent that might see it pulled into transboundary water disputes affecting, for example, Russia and China. 

Instead, Lutundula spoke about agreeing on a guiding document for all three parties to follow, that would comprise and represent a middle ground between the Sudanese and Egyptian demands for a binding agreement and Ethiopia’s rejection of a legal commitment in favor of a series of guidelines. 

While the three countries welcomed the Security Council’s call for the AU-led talks to resume, Ethiopia still expressed discontent with the council’s involvement “in the issue of water rights and development that is outside its jurisdiction,” according to a statement published by the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry on Thursday picked up by the privately owned Masrawy Egyptian news outlet. 

Although the DRC’s proposal did not meet Egypt’s hopes, the Egyptian source said that Cairo “will interact with all seriousness with Kinshasa’s effort,” as part of a strategy adopted by Egypt of positive interaction with the various proposals and efforts to solve the dispute.