By Xinhua
CAIRO, July 13 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi and visiting Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed discussed on Thursday the ways to overcome the current stalemate in negotiations on the controversial Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), the Egyptian presidency said in a statement. The two leaders reiterated their shared political will to enhance the bilateral relations at the political, economic, and cultural levels driven by a mutual desire to achieve common interests and the prosperity of the two peoples, according to the statement. Promoting bilateral cooperation between the two countries will contribute to the stability, peace, and security of the region, and enhance the two sides' ability to deal with common challenges, the statement said. To break the current stalemate in GERD talks, Egypt and Ethiopia agreed to initiate expedited negotiations to finalize the agreement among Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan on the filling of the GERD and the rules of its operations. The three countries will make all the necessary efforts to finalize the deal in four months, the statement said, adding Ethiopia has stressed its commitment not to cause significant harm to Egypt and Sudan in terms of their water needs during the filling of the GERD within the hydrological year 2023-2024. The Ethiopian prime minister arrived in Cairo on Wednesday, heading a delegation to Sudan's Neighboring Countries Summit hosted by Egypt to discuss ways to end the ongoing conflict in Sudan and its negative repercussions on neighboring countries. On July 6, Ahmed said Ethiopia is ready to resume negotiations with Egypt and Sudan on the GERD. Addressing the Ethiopian parliament, he said the fourth filling of the GERD will extend until September 2023, "so that the downstream countries will not be harmed." Before the outbreak of the conflict in Sudan in April, Ethiopia announced that 90 percent of the GERD construction had been finished amid its tensions with Egypt and Sudan over a lack of consensus over the rules of the dam's filling and operation. On Feb. 20 last year, Ethiopia announced the operation of the dam and the start of generating electricity which was considered by Egypt a violation of the declaration of principles that had been signed between the three countries in 2015. Ethiopia started building the GERD in 2011. Egypt is concerned that it might affect its 55.5-billion-cubic-meter annual share of the Nile water, and Sudan has raised similar concerns over the dam. Over the past few years, the tripartite talks on the rules regarding the filling and operation of the giant hydropower dam, with a total capacity of 74 billion cubic meters, have been fruitless, including those hosted in 2021 by the United States and the African Union. Enditem
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